


Blue

by NephthysMoon



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU - Big Bang Two, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Reunion Fic, River Song & Rose Tyler BFF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2623214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephthysMoon/pseuds/NephthysMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The color of the eyes that first drew her in. The color of the box she called home. The color of the sky and oceans on her native planet. The color of the envelope in her hand.</p><p>ON HIATUS UNDERGOING REWRITE 5/17/17. Thanks for sticking with me!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Invasion of the Shop Window Dummies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Puxa10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puxa10/gifts).



> dwsecretsanta gift for dw10love.
> 
> I completely lied to you. From the day we've met, I've been pretending that your gifter introduced me to your blog, never admitting that it was me, the entire time, so that I could find out enough about you to make sure that you'd enjoy what I'd created for you. I REALLY hope you enjoy this. It's been a bit insane to write, honestly. This was so much fun, and I've had such a wonderful time getting to know you, darling. I really, really appreciate you befriending the crazy woman who just randomly popped into your life one day, and I hope you like your story (and that random horrid gifset that went with it over on tumblr.)
> 
> Beta read by the fantastic Nyruserra & okaminoyume

A long time ago, in the future, Rose Tyler had been called the Defender of Earth. She’d travelled through space and time, crossed dimensions, and had once held the Universe in her head.

 

And then, she woke up to find it had all been a dream. She was ten years old, living on the Powell Estates with her mother, in 1996, not twenty-seven, in 2013, living in a parallel world, working for the very organisation that had created the breach that led to her quasi-imprisonment.

 

And the world was - wrong. There was no other way to describe it. Her first Doctor had taken her hand, and she had felt the whirl of the Earth beneath her feet as it rotated on its axis, the absolute indescribable _speed_ of it as it hurled through space along its orbit - a feeling that had vanished the moment he’d dropped her hand, leaving her breathless and dizzy - a feeling that had returned, to a lesser extent, like a soft, reassuring hum at the back of her mind, once her first Doctor had become her second Doctor. And that feeling wasn’t gone, exactly - but it was - wrong. Sour. Like instead of a beautiful golden glow it had turned a dull yellow with sickly green notes.

 

She didn’t know why she was thinking in colours, either. It was also quite possible, of course, that she was going mad. What normal ten year old dreamed those kinds of dreams? A mad man who could change his face had taken her away in a blue box that was bigger on the inside and could travel through time and space!

 

Rose was pretty sure it was all just a bit of insanity brought on by too much of Mum’s shepard pie. But still - still...there were things she couldn’t explain, things that she knew before they happened - _people_ she knew, before she met them. Like Jimmy Stone. He didn’t move to the Powell Estate until she was twelve - his family had money, once, and it had taken a few years for them to fall to hard enough times for them to need to live in such _low_ circumstances. They’d never approved of his life, or her. She’d fancied herself in love with Jimmy Stone since she was fourteen, in her dreams, and she could see the exact same things beginning to play out in her reality, even though she’d done what she could to change herself from the girl she’d seen in her dreams.

 

She’d give dream!Rose that much credit, at least. There were some things about the girl that she never, ever wanted to feel, and that was that crushing sense of never, ever being good enough. She knew she was clever - even her teachers at school told her so, even if they usually followed it up with something about how it was a shame she’d never amount to anything. And while the Rose in her dreams had always believed them, little Rose Tyler had Dream Rose as a sort of guide, showing her that even without their belief, she could be something amazing. She forced herself to study the stars, just in case that daft old man with the big ears and the leather jacket with the mad blue box was real. She wanted to be able to name as many of those twinkling lights as he could.

 

Despite the things that proved her dream could have its basis in reality, there were other things that seemed to point towards it being nothing more than a really elaborate ruse her mind had created to trick her. She convinced Mickey to let her use his computer, and to teach her what he knew about hacking. Mickey was the only one she could trust not to have her sanctioned for the things in her head.

 

Together, they researched everything they could about classified government agencies. There was no mention, anywhere, of an agency named Torchwood. In fact, the only record of anything named Torchwood, at all, was a tiny footnote in history referencing the house Rose remembered staying at with her imaginary Doctor. The story of the werewolf had been reduced to a legend, and though it was “speculated” by conspiracy theorists that Queen Victoria had been attacked during her stay at the manor house the night its lord had died, there was no mention of a Sir Doctor nor a Dame Rose having been involved.

 

She tried to find proof of Torchwood - she went to Canary Wharf, and with forged credentials, thanks to her work at a print shop, she was given a journalist’s tour of the building, including the very top floor. No white wall. No levers of doom. Nothing to make her heart clench in screaming agony. She didn’t know which was worse - the anticipation that she would find those things, or the fact that they didn’t exist.

 

Discouraged, she tried to find Jack Harkness, but there was no sign of him in Cardiff. She “remembered” him saying his Torchwood was based somewhere near the Rift, where they’d landed when they’d visited before, but though she wandered around for hours, asking anyone and everyone she met if a tall, handsome man named Jack had hit on them, no one had given her a positive response that had panned out.

 

She’d slunk home to London with her tail between her legs to lick her wounds in private, ignoring Mickey’s calls for three days before settling down to study for her A-Levels. She watched the news, looking for anything that could lead her to the mystery man called the Doctor, for anything that would prove that her dreams were not just weird flashes of the future laced with liberal fantasy, but nothing happened.

 

When her gap year came, instead of taking the time to see the world, she took a job in a shop, the same one she remembered Dream Rose working in, on the hope that she’d finally meet him.

 

_The bag shaking in front of her face, how was it different from any other night? Going down to Wilson’s office - how did she know?_

 

Rose was on tenterhooks. This was it - this was the night. There was the noise, the clatter that drew her attention from Wilson’s office and towards the supply room where she’d finally meet him - memory and reality were becoming one in a way that had never happened before. She followed the footsteps of Dream Rose as though she were _in_ a dream, outside her body, not in control, and she knew that there was a certain inevitability to this moment - predestination, Shareen would call it. Shareen had always liked to read, use big words she found in books. Rose used to make fun of her for that, when they were little - before the dream.

 

There they were - the shop window dummies - the Nestene Duplicates, _he’d_ called them. Her memories from Torchwood One in Pete’s World started pouring in as they began backing her against the wall. _Autons, controlled by the Nestene Consciousness, seeking refuge on Earth, primary weapons were a laser or photon pistol device concealed in the hand, capable of creating an almost identical duplicate of any human, alive or dead._ Her body, honed from years of conditioning and self-taught martial arts from her “memories”, as well as instincts that had been ingrained from that other life, was tense and poised for flight when a warm, solid hand grasped hers.

 

She felt it then, just as strongly as she had before, but still as wrong - the turn of the Earth, the absolute _speed_ of the planet’s orbit, but so very, very _wrong_ \- the golden note turned sour yellow.

 

And a voice, a voice in her ear. “Run,” he said, pulling her arm along with hers, and she didn’t even hesitate, never looked up. The voice was familiar, so she followed without questioning, despite the _wrongness_. And as soon as they reached the familiar elevator, she turned to look, to finally see those ears, that leather jacket, but she was pulled into warm arms and a thick, woollen coat that smelled of musk and bay rum and something she recognised but couldn’t place - and then there was a flash of white light and the smell of the Thames assaulted her nose and she was being lifted from her feet in an encompassing hug that swung her legs around her saviour’s body and smothered into a warm, broad chest.

 

“Hello,” he said into her hair, and she laughed, finally able to place the voice.

 

“Hello,” she answered, grinning up at him as he put her down. The eyes were blue, of course, bright and shining with laughter, not distant and raging with a storm. The hair was brown, naturally, and perfectly styled, never close-cropped, emphasising over-large ears.

 

“I think I’m supposed to say ‘hello’ a few more times,” he teased, and she swatted his shoulder playfully.

 

“Don’t you dare, Captain Jack Harkness,” she said, shaking her head. “The fact that you actually exist, that you know who I am - that I’m not _mad_! Oi, you have no idea how brilliant this is!”

 

“So you’ve known since 1996, then?” he asked, looking down at her. “Oh, Rosie, I should have checked on you sooner. I was so afraid I’d be disrupting the time lines if I met you before you were supposed to start travelling with him.”

 

“You might have done,” she said, shrugging. “You can tell me all about it later. We’ve got an angry Consciousness to deal with, remember? Invasion of the Shop Window Dummies, yeah?”

 

“Anti-Plastic’s in my pocket,” Jack said. “I know the Doctor always gives them a chance, but I remember what you told me,” he trailed off.

 

“The Consciousness wouldn’t have stopped,” she said, her voice hard. “They almost killed my mum, and they would have killed the Doctor. We don’t give it a choice.”

 

She knew the Doctor would never approve of what they were about to do, but she and Jack didn’t answer to him, and he wasn’t there. Jack used his Vortex Manipulator to pop them into the Consciousness’ “lair” and with something resembling an unholy glee, Jack tipped in the vial of Anti-Plastic before it had a chance to register their presence. They popped back out a moment later. No muss, no fuss, no Invasion of the Shop Window Dummies. She still had a job, no one had died (except the Consciousness), and Mickey had never been taken. The Doctor might not approve, but she thought she might like their way better - there was less damage.

 

Jack tossed her a phone. “Call Mickey, call Jackie. Tell Mickey you’ve found some proof - I know you’d have told Mickey Mouse as much as you could; he’ll cover for you with Jackie. Tell Jackie you’re touring a uni campus, last minute opening, and you’re taking Mickey - yes, he’s invited, too, but he’ll have to find his own way to get there. Taking two makes it worse, taking three is - distinctly unpleasant,” he said. Rose nodded.

 

Jack pulled out another phone, and while Rose made the phone calls he suggested, telling her mother the lies Jack had prepared, she tried to listen to his conversation.

 

“When are you?” he was asking the other person. “I don’t give a damn if you can’t tell me, get your ass to the coordinates I’m sending you, because I need your help with a situation, Doctor Song!”

 

Rose’s heart clenched at the word Doctor - for a moment she’d thought he was on the phone with the Doctor, but clearly he hadn’t been. She happily convinced her mother she was touring another uni, and since her mother was convinced she had gotten airs and graces from her scholarships and working in high-class shops during school breaks, she didn’t want to hear which uni it was anyway. Mickey was only too happy to finally see something of the life that Rose had been dreaming about most of their lives. She got the address from Jack and Mickey looked up the trains and buses he’d need and Jack promised to send a car to the train station for him. Their calls finished, Rose and Jack stood awkwardly looking over at the London Eye.

 

“The Consciousness was using it as a transmitter, y’know,” she said, gesturing at the massive structure awkwardly.

 

“Aliens have no subtlety,” he said with a snort. “Of course, they have slightly more than the people I’m taking you to visit.”

 

“Torchwood really doesn’t exist then,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that the organisation that was behind so much of her misery, that had manipulated her life for so long simply did not exist.

 

“As far as we can tell, they never have, and while it is possible that they will in a few years, right now, they don’t,” he said. “I’m not the expert on this, Rosie. I don’t have all the answers. But if you’ll come with me, I’ll get you all the answers I can.”

 

“Doctor Song?” she asked, raising one eyebrow in a fair imitation of her second Doctor. Jack merely nodded, not even feigning surprise that she’d listened to his conversation. “Well, then - _allons-y_!” she said with false cheer.

 

Jack punched a few buttons on his wrist and put her hand over his, flashing them from their place in front of the London Eye to an oddly chaotic yet organised office. A handsome, well-dressed man looked up from a desk in the corner and smirked at Jack. “How many times have I told you to stop bringing home pretty girls, Jack?” he said, rolling his eyes.

 

“That’s enough lip out of you, Ianto,” Jack said, winking at the pretty boy, who shook his head and turned back to his paperwork.

 

“Welcome to UNIT, Miss Tyler,” he said, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “If you’d care for tea, please let me know. Jack, Doctor Song was here for a few minutes before she mentioned something about - and I quote - ‘bloody Time Agents learning their bloody coordinates’ and said she’d be back in half an hour.”

 

Rose was impressed that he’d managed the whole thing with an entirely straight face, his voice completely devoid of emotion. She’d have at least smirked when delivering a message like that.

 

“Yes, _thank you_ , Ianto,” Jack said. “Please remind me why I keep you on, again?”

 

“No one else will put up with your flirting, sir,” the man said without looking up. “Gwen would probably shoot you, Tosh would stare at you like you’d sprouted tentacles, Owen would attempt to punch you, and Miss Tyler would likely laugh, if half of what you’ve told me about her is true.”

 

Jack huffed and rubbed his temples. “Ianto, be a good little secretary and - I don’t know - go file something, fetch a coffee - just - get out,” he said, clearly done with his assistant.

 

“Tea, Miss Tyler?” Ianto asked, standing and looking completely undisturbed by Jack’s antics, while Rose attempted to stifle her laughter. She’d never seen unflappable Jack so flustered. She would need to remember Ianto’s technique.

 

“Tea would be lovely, ta,” she said. “And it’s Rose, please.”

 

“Of course, Miss Tyler,” Ianto said, leaving the room. “I’ll return with your tea, and coffee for you, Captain, in a few moments. I will then attempt to find something to file. Send for me if you need anything further.” The door closed behind him.

 

“Jack Harkness, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were just a little in love with that boy,” she said, letting loose the laughter that had been fighting its way free since the exchange had started.

 

“Don’t - just don’t, Rose, please,” Jack said, and for the first time, Rose realised that Jack was actually in pain.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, stepping closer to him, rubbing his shoulder in comfort.

 

“What’s wrong is that he knows what’s going to happen to the charming and handsome Ianto Jones, and he can’t reconcile himself to the idea that everything has its time, and everything dies,” said a woman, and Rose looked up to see that they were no longer alone.  



	2. Professor River Song, Archaeology

Behind Ianto’s desk sat what was perhaps the most stunning woman Rose had ever seen, including the French courtesan the Doctor had been so taken with on that space ship a long time ago, in the future. Tall, with riotous curls that framed a strong, mature face whose lines had fallen in kind places, the woman had eyes that seemed to pierce through her with knowledge far beyond the years her face held.  _Eyes like the Doctor’s_ .

 

“You’ve regenerated,” she said, stepping towards the woman to get a closer look, never for a moment having imagined that he could do something like this.

 

“Oh, sweetie,” the woman said, her laughter kind. “Your thoughts are written plainly across your face, but I’m afraid you’ve gotten it quite, quite wrong. If that man ever regenerated into a woman, I think he might call it quits right then and there.”

 

Rose knew she must look surprised - she certainly felt it, and the woman’s laughter was confirmation. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But - your eyes…”

 

“Yours, too,” the bushy-haired woman said, gesturing towards Rose’s own face. “Though neither of us has quite the same weight in ours that he does, we both carry a part of the burden that he does. Look carefully at the Captain. His are the same. Impossible things, the three of us, especially right now. What you see in my eyes, and what I see in yours, sweetie, is knowledge, power, and the weight of centuries.”

 

“Who _are_ you?” Rose asked, her eyes wide as she stared at this woman who claimed that they and Jack were the same.

 

“River Song, Professor of Archaeology at Luna University,” she said, standing. “And you, my dear, are Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf. And once upon a time, he was Captain Jack Harkness of the Time Agency, known as the Face of Boe on recruitment posters.”

 

Rose turned to look at Jack. Jack who couldn’t die, who would live forever, who would - her head felt fuzzy. “The Face of Boe?” she asked, shaking her head a bit to clear it.

 

“Oh, yes,” River Song said, amusement making those old eyes light up. “His pretty boy face was plastered on recruitment posters for the Time Agency all over the Boeshane Peninsula.”

 

“And they called him - the Face of Boe,” Rose repeated, looking from Jack to River and back again, trying to equate the handsome man with the age-old eyes standing next to her with the giant head in a jar from Platform One and the sun expanding - which, given River’s unholy amusement, was exactly the connection she was supposed to be making, without Jack catching on, because of course Jack couldn’t find out he turned into a giant, telepathic head. That wouldn’t do at all. “I need to sit down,” she said finally, dropping into a visitor’s chair in front of Ianto’s desk.

 

Ianto returned, thankfully, with a perfect cup of steaming tea, better than her mother’s even, a cup of coffee for Jack, and something that may have been water for River, before excusing himself again. Once he was gone, River settled herself behind his desk again, and Jack sat next to Rose in the other visitor’s chair.

 

“Sweetie, I’m sure you must have thousands of questions,” she said, “and I’ll answer as many of them as I can, but there are some things I simply can’t answer. Some of them I don’t know the answers to, because time is in a state of flux right now, more than you can imagine, or some because to know too much about your own future is dangerous. If I were to tell you that you survived a certain event - say, I told you that you lived through tonight, and you were mugged on your way home, you would be careless with your life during that event, confident in the knowledge that this is not the night you were slated to die, and one tiny little slip, and you could die anyway, unwriting a fixed point in time, and disrupting the entire causal nexus. With time as unstable as it is at the moment, we cannot afford for anything to go wrong.”

 

“I understand,” Rose said. “There was - when the stars were going out, and I had to find Donna, I couldn’t tell her anything. If I told her anything, even my name, there was the possibility that everything could unwind, and we would all die.”

 

“Yes, it’s quite a bit like that, actually,” River said, nodding, “only bigger, Rose, so very much bigger. With Donna, you were working with a matter of months. That man,” River shook her head in clear frustration and took a few deep, steadying breaths. “That ridiculous, impossible man has done something incredibly stupid. Jack knows the very bare basics, and I’ve promised him a much fuller story when the time was right, and tonight I get to make good on that promise.”

 

River settled herself back into Ianto’s desk chair, cradled her glass in her hands, and began her story.

 

“To fully explain this to you, I have to start - oh, a long time ago, I suppose. And don’t worry, Jack, I disabled all listening devices in your office when I was here earlier.” Jack looked startled at this, but River just shrugged. “We all know the Doctor was abnormal by Time Lord standards. The Time Lords had a very strict policy of observation when it came to lesser species - and to them, everyone was a lesser species. I think most Time Lords believed other Gallifreyans were lesser species. It’s important to realise that every Time Lord was a Gallifreyan, but not every Gallifreyan was a Time Lord - they were caste above and beyond their own people. And the Doctor - well, he was something unique among his own people.

 

I’m an archaeologist, and I became one because I wanted to know more about him. Getting that man to talk about himself is like getting blood from a stone. He can talk for days and say nothing at all. So I read about him. There are theories, of course, about why he was different; there are even a few in Old High Gallifreyan. One suggests that he may have been born of Rassilon himself. I don’t know, and I can’t say. All that matters is where others observed, he wanted to interact, to live and breathe among other species - so he stole a TARDIS, and he ran away, taking his granddaughter, Susan, with him.

 

Rose, did you know that the closest translation for Susan’s name in his native tongue is actually “Rose”?” River laughed.

 

“I’m not sure that means anything in particular, but I’ve always thought that it was sweet. His first companion after losing everything was something that reminded him of everything he’d lost. The last TARDIS of Gallifrey, and the last Time Lord, travelling together, both broken, patched together, and they find this tiny little human girl who is just as big on the inside as they are. They never, ever forgot you, Rose Tyler. The TARDIS could rearrange herself a hundred thousand times, purge every single room she has in existence, including the wardrobe, the library, and the Doctor’s own bedroom, and your room would be locked in place.”

 

Rose was crying. The TARDIS had claimed her, and she had never had a home she’d loved so much, nor that had loved her so much, apparently. Jack was holding her hand, rubbing comforting circles across the back of it.

 

“Jack, I think you’ve been briefed on most of what the Doctor did between the Game Station and the Medusa Cascade, yes?” River asked. He nodded. “Rose?”

 

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes, remembering that awful, awful day in Norway.

 

River took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for this Rose, but I have to ask. How long did you have?”

 

“Two years,” she said, her closed eyes giving her some protection against the pitying stares she was sure she was getting. “We had two years before his mind began to burn, but he knew it was going to happen within the first hour. He put it together very quickly, and started yelling at himself for not thinking of it - for trapping me there with a broken, useless version of himself. That’s when he offered,” her voice broke, and she couldn’t continue.

 

“He offered you the bond, so he could share his memories with you before he burned,” River finished for her. She nodded gratefully. “I’m so sorry for you loss.”

 

“Thank you,” Rose whispered. This was one of the few memories she hadn’t wanted to examine closely in the nine years since she’d had ‘the dream’; it had hurt far too much. “What about Donna?”

 

“Donna didn’t have the advantage of being grown from a Time Lord to begin with,” River said. “Her brain was fully human; she barely lasted until they got back. He saved her by sealing away her memories. Everything she did, everything she was, everything she’d become - gone. That’s one of the things we’ll need to discuss, actually.”

 

“You said you’d tell us what happened,” Jack reminded her, and River nodded.

 

“Yes, well, after Donna, and Rose, he - Jack, do you remember how he said if a Time Lord did what Rose had done, he’d become a vengeful god?” At Jack’s nod, she continued. “Well, he did anyway. He altered a fixed point. He tampered with things that should never have been tampered with, and caused a woman who ought to have died on a mission, who knew she ought to have died on that mission, to kill herself, because she had more respect for the timeline at that point than he did.”

 

Rose stared at River, horrified. The Doctor wouldn’t - he couldn’t! Her big-eared, leather-wearing Doctor had nearly abandoned her in her own past for altering a fixed point in time! Surely he wouldn’t - the look of absolute distaste on River’s face assured her that he had.

 

“My god,” she whispered. “There was no one to hold his hand.”

 

“Sometimes he needs a hand to hold, Rose,” River said, gently. “But more often than not, since Canary Wharf, what he’s needed is someone to stop him from going too far. You’ve seen it yourself. You saw it in the school, that day with the Krillitanes, remember? Before that, you saw it in Utah, with the Dalek. The only thing that stops him from becoming the very monsters he fights is the people that believe in him.”

 

“Who believes in him now?” Rose asked.

 

“That’s just the thing,” River said, shaking her head. “Right now, the only three people who remember the Doctor are sitting in this very room. And we only remember because we exist outside of time, and because we each have a special connection to the TARDIS, and because none of us age in a proper manner.”

 

“I think it’s about time you explained yourself, Professor,” Jack said, and Rose couldn’t remember ever hearing him sound so angry.

 

“Of course,” River said. “After that, there wasn’t much for him to do. He stopped the Master from unwittingly bringing back Gallifrey - not from the Time Lock, in its proper place, but by displacing Earth entirely.”

 

“I think I missed that, thankfully,” Jack said.

 

“This was after the 456,” River said. Jack’s face shuttered. “He was poisoned by radiation saving the life of Donna’s grandfather, who had helped him during the entire thing. He regenerated.” They both nodded at that. In some ways, it made it easier, in others, harder. A new Doctor wasn’t _their_ Doctor - he was just _the_ Doctor. “It went a bit wrong.”

 

Rose started laughing. “Doesn’t it always?” she asked, thinking of his manic energy followed by his complete and total collapse after wishing her Mum and Mickey a happy Christmas.

 

“Worse than usual, actually,” River said. “He’d waited too long, tried to say goodbye to everyone he could, and the energy release was so powerful he managed to completely destroy the interior of the console room in the TARDIS, causing her to crash into someone’s shed.”

 

“Bet that someone was in for a nasty shock,” Jack muttered, stifling his laughter.

 

“Tell me about it,” Rose agreed.

 

“If you’ve quite finished.” River glared at them both, and they mumbled apologies at her while shooting each other amused glances out of the corners of their eyes. “That was in 1996: the _someone_ was seven-year-old Amelia Pond, who was praying for Santa to come fix the crack in her wall, through which she could hear a voice sometimes, saying that Prisoner Zero had escaped.”

 

“Well, _fuck_ ,” was Jack’s eloquent reply.

 

“1996, you said?” Rose asked. “Around Easter?”

 

River nodded, smiling. “Yes, exactly - I’m getting there, but it will take a few minutes. I promise, you’re on the right track, and it has everything to do with it.”

 

“Continue, then,” she said.

 

“Amelia was completely unperturbed by the mad man who was, as she put it, coughing up gold glitter, and tasting his way through every single thing she had in the house, which convinced him that whatever the crack in her wall was, it must have been terrifying,” River said. “He, of course, investigated, and discovered it was something that ought not to ever exist: a crack in the skin of the Universe itself.”

 

“What could possibly cause that!?” Jack demanded.

 

“More importantly, what was it doing on the wall of a seven-year-old girl, and who was Prisoner Zero?” Rose asked.

 

“Yes, well, before he could get all of those answers, the TARDIS was done fixing herself after he trashed her, so he popped off for ‘five minutes’ and when he got back, he discovered (after a little trial and error that involved a cricket bat and a pair of handcuffs) that he’d actually been gone for twelve years and that Prisoner Zero had been hiding in Amelia Pond’s house the entire time.” River was smirking. Rose was gaping. Jack looked ready to strangle the Doctor the moment they found him.

 

“Oh, relax, both of you. Amelia - or, Amy, as she prefers now - is fine. The Doctor sorted Prisoner Zero, he eventually managed to invite Amy to travel with him, and she and her fiancé have been travelling with the Doctor for some time now. The problem is those cracks. There wasn’t just one on Amy’s wall. There was one in every single place the TARDIS has ever landed. Everywhere. Every _when_. Stretching all across the entire Universe.”

 

“The TARDIS is somehow responsible for these cracks, then?” Rose asked, puzzled.

 

“Yes - and no,” River said. “To go back even further, before you, before me, before Jack - actually, Jack may be familiar with them - Jack, what do you know of the Church of the Papal Mainframe?”

 

“Are you asking about the actual Church or that weird sect that had that sprung up that - oh - _oh_ , I see…” he dropped off into thought. “You’re asking about the sect, aren’t you?”

 

“I see you’re _quite_ familiar with the Papal Mainframe, then,” River said. “Time is a funny thing. And time on that place is odder still. Can I say, with absolute certainty, that 1996, Earth, is before or after, the 900-year-siege of Christmas? Absolutely not. As of this moment, the sect known as the Silence may or may not be in existence - well, actually, they are not. But the Silence essentially declared war on the Doctor, Rose,” she said. “And it was to stop Gallifrey from returning. I cannot say that I blame them. He likes to remember the best of his people, and likes to forget all the reasons why he stopped them. He doesn’t like to remember that he stopped them from returning in 2009 not just because Gallifrey was going to destroy Earth when it returned but because Rassilon was going to initiate the Final Sanction and destroy all corporeal life forms, including the Time Lords, so that they could ascend to beings of pure thought. It’s the primary reason, though not the only one, he initiated the Moment and destroyed his own people to begin with during the Time War. They had become so corrupt as to be unrecognisable.”

 

“That’s horrible!”

 

“He has been alone for so long, inside his own head, that he has forgotten the horrors, and all that mattered to him then was that he could bring them back,” River said. “And so the Silence declared war on the Doctor. And one of the ways they waged this war was to destroy the TARDIS. An exploding TARDIS, and don’t ask me how because the physics of a multi-dimensional being exploding are beyond my comprehension, creates a Total Event Collapse. Every star, in every galaxy, in every single Universe - even the parallels - is destroyed – across all of time. Completely wiped out of existence. But the Silence didn’t know, or maybe didn’t realise that would happen. And all of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, ones you’ve met and ones you’ve probably never heard of, banded together, created an alliance of the like which had never before been seen, and with the help of the Silence, they would create a trap for him, one he couldn’t resist, and prevent the entire event from happening. The Pandorica.”

 

“But they caused it, didn’t they?” Rose asked, shaking her head. “How bad was it?”

 

“I wasn’t there for most of it,” River admitted. “I was - flying the TARDIS while it exploded, but from what Rory told me, it was a rather bleak and depressing two thousand years with the only ‘sun’ in the Universe an exploding TARDIS.”

 

“Oh. My. God.” Jack said, staring at her. “I can’t believe - I think I might have some kind of - there’s something there - not the Medusa Cascade, but something about no stars, and a really, really close and weak sun,” he said.

 

“Don’t focus too hard,” River said, shrugging. “What’s important is that the only way for the Doctor to fix that was to essentially reboot the Universe. Big Bang Two, he called it. Inside that perfect prison was a tiny sample of the Universe that had been destroyed - all the atoms that ever existed - and all it needed was a spark,” she said.

 

“Like an explosion that was happening across all of space and time,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Only he would think of something like that - and even Big Ears and Leather wouldn’t have been that stupid.”

 

“Well, it worked,” River snapped. “But the thing is, the cracks couldn’t close until he was on the other side, completely erased from history,” she finished.

 

“And he didn’t go across until the night he first met little Amelia Pond,” Rose finished, shaking her head. “If he’d crossed through any of the other cracks, it could have been completely different. But he chose that crack, at that particular time, to go back. He rebooted the Universe from that night.”

 

“The question is, River Song, how do you know all this?” Jack asked, staring at her.

 

“Normally, this is where I smirk, and say ‘spoilers’, but being just as anomalous as I am, I think it’s fair you both get some straight answers,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Your Doctor thought he killed me in the Library, Rose. He’s not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. And whenever he thinks that the TARDIS can’t go near a particular time period or place, just remind him that there are other ways to travel. And never, ever believe a word Amelia Pond writes. Having said all of that, which, by the way, are nearly the only real hints for how to get by in the future you’ll get from me, beyond the obvious, which is that time can be rewritten, as long as it isn’t a fixed point, in which case, time can be _mostly_ rewritten, as long as it still looks pretty damn fixed, I’m like the two of you. You both remember what happened in the unwritten time, the time where the Doctor still existed.

 

The Doctor doesn’t exist anymore. He sacrificed himself - he has been completely written out of time and space and history – he has never existed and never will. You’re both like me - we’re impossible things, the three of us. And that is because we have a special connection to the TARDIS. Time is in flux right now, and there are vast number of things that will never happen because they only happened because of him, or they will happen differently because he won’t exist. Time has compensated for most of those things prior to 1996, and if we are very, very lucky, in 2010, Amelia Pond will remember her imaginary friend, and we will get the Doctor back, but that gives us another five years, give or take, that we have to sort out on our own - UNIT has been doing well, thus far.”

 

What happened next was one of the most bizarre planning sessions Rose had ever attended. Fortified by enough tea to float a ship, supplied by Ianto who popped in and out whenever they needed him, she, River, and Jack cobbled together a timeline of events that they each recalled happening over the course of the next five years.

 

When they had it spread over several sheets of paper, they started to plan.

 

“Well, the Autons have already been dealt with, so that’s one thing we can cross off,” River said with a satisfied smile. “I’m a bit worried about the Weeping Angels, though. They’re supposed to come out of their dormant state over in Wester Drumlins about now, but in the proper timeline, they were tricked into a quantum lock by surrounding the TARDIS. When it disappeared from between them, they were left staring at each other - trapping them in a ring. Not sure how we could manage something like that, honestly. Let’s put that down as something to brainstorm on.”

 

Rose wrote down ‘ _Weeping Angels - Wester Drumlins_ ’ on a fresh sheet of paper, and they turned back to the lists.

 

“I’ve already recruited Owen,” Jack said. “I pre-empted the timeline a bit with some of my Torchwood team, so most of the things that affect them can be subverted. But we’re looking at the Slitheen infiltrating next year, and that’s something that we’re going to have to deal with ourselves. It wasn’t directly caused by the Doctor, though it was stopped by him. We probably can’t prevent it, but we can handle the fallout. It all depends on how we want to manipulate it.”

 

“I think in the interests of preserving the timeline, we should stick to the events as closely as possible. Let them infiltrate the government and gather at Downing Street. We take them out the same way the Doctor did - with Mickey on the outside,” River said, nodding. “It eliminates any inconsistencies that could crop up and create problems later on, and cements Harriet Jones’ position - she was meant to be the harbinger of Britain’s Golden Age. Torchwood destroyed that. Without Torchwood, we can bring that back in line.”

 

“That’s settled then,” Rose said, marking it down under her notation about the Weeping Angels. “What’s next?”

 

“The Blaidd Drwg project,” Jack said, frowning. Rose’s eyes flashed gold. “Without the TARDIS, I don’t know how we can stop that without killing Margaret.”

 

“We have the _Blaidd Drwg_ ,” River said, smirking. “Rose, you can create the same effect as the TARDIS itself, with my help. We can save her, and Jack can use his Vortex Manipulator to take the egg to Raxacoricofallapatorius.”

 

Rose frowned, but made the note. “You disapprove, Rosie,” Jack observed.

 

“She tried to kill us, Jack,” she said. “ _Twice_.” She took a deep breath. “She nearly tore the TARDIS apart. She almost opened the Rift. She tried to destroy the planet. Again, _twice_. I don’t have unlimited mercy, despite what the Doctor may think. Yes, I think she should die for what she’s done. But the TARDIS judged her worthy of a second chance, so I’ll abide by the TARDIS’ judgment.”

 

“This one is tricky,” River said, her face furrowing. “There was never any clear evidence if the Sycorax were drawn to the Earth because the Doctor was releasing his regeneration energy, or if they were truly interested in the Earth before that. We should be on high alert for a possible invasion, have a plan prepared to launch a moment’s notice, but keep it from going to a panic.”

 

“I agree,” Rose said. “The Doctor seemed to think the Pilot Fish were drawn to him, which would indicate that it was the Doctor they were after, since his energy could power their spaceship for quite some time, with the Earth’s resources as a bonus, but there was no indication that they knew he was here before that. They may have been coming here before that. It’s a solid plan.”

 

She marked down the Sycorax as their next point of interest and they continued to the next thing that they needed to address.

 

“LINDA shouldn’t be an issue, and neither should the Abzorbaloff, since the Doctor doesn’t exist,” Rose said. “With no Doctor, the group would never form, nor gain the creature’s attention.”

 

“Agreed,” River and Jack said.

 

“H. C. Clements shouldn’t even exist, either,” Jack said, looking at the list again, “since it was one of Torchwood’s shell companies. I was actually wondering if we could bring Donna on here, River?”

 

“Yes, with certain precautions,” River agreed. “Rose, you’d have to - help her.”

 

Rose closed her eyes, thinking of the sour yellow notes of this broken timeline, and nodded. “Let me interview her, Jack. I’ll find a way to scan her. If I can prevent the bleed through, then she can come on.”

 

“You misunderstand me, Rose,” River said. “The problem isn’t bleed through. On the 26 June 2010, everyone, everywhere, who ever knew the Doctor will remember him. Even Donna Noble. If we can’t help her, her mind will burn.”

 

Rose’s pen fell. And then her brain caught up. “But the Medusa Cascade never happened,” she said slowly, her words measured and thoughtful. “So, would she still have the mind of a Time Lord?”

 

River and Jack looked at each other. “I hadn’t actually considered that, to be honest,” River said. “But you’re right. There’s every possibility that Donna Noble will have a completely human mind. Jack, get her in for an interview, let Rose scan her. If she’s broken in any way, we can fix her, prepare her mind for when the Doctor returns. If not, then when he does, it’s better that she’s here, so we can stop her from quite possibly killing him - and then killing him again.”

 

They laughed - Rose certainly wouldn’t put it past the redhead. The woman reminded her quite a bit of her own mother, and she wondered if _he’d_ noticed that resemblance. It was a comforting thought.

 

“So, without Torchwood, the chances that we’ll have to deal with the Racnoss are rather slim, yeah?” she asked, and the other two nodded. “Then we’ll put it on our unlikely list and move on, which brings us to the Titanic. Can’t believe that one, myself, but it just bloody figures.”

 

“I’ll deal with that one. Bug in the right ear, investigation into that ship long before it leaves port, as well as its owner, and the Titanic will be nowhere near Earth. Should prevent any problems, but we’ll create an emergency back-up plan just in case,” River said.

 

“And we’re absolutely, positively sure that the Daleks and Cybermen aren’t coming through?” Jack asked. “There’s no Canary Wharf?”

 

“We can’t be positive of anything, Jack, but without Torchwood poking around, it’s very unlikely,” River said.

 

Rose ran through her memories, painful as they were, of Canary Wharf, and hit one massive snag. “Except there’s something you’ve forgotten,” she said, closing her eyes and swallowing hard. “The Void Ship - the Daleks. They came through first. They’re the ones that punched the hole in reality that Torchwood was widening. The one that the TARDIS fell through when we landed in Pete’s World the first time. The one the Cybermen came through later. It was the Daleks that started it all. Not the Doctor. And it’s probably already happened.”

 

“Except without the Doctor, the Daleks were wiped out of existence on Skaro very early into their creation, along with Davros,” River said softly. “The Doctor has always felt responsible for the Daleks because he was once given the choice to commit genocide on the Daleks and he refused, before they were a galactic threat. It’s possible that without the Doctor, the Time War never happened. The Void Ship never existed.”

 

“So when he said it was his fault,” Rose said, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes, “he honestly believes it. He didn’t commit genocide once, and because of that, he had to watch his own people destroy themselves until he had no choice but to destroy countless civilizations. Oh my god.”

 

“If there is a god, I very much doubt he has much to do with any of us,” River said, shaking her head.

 

Jack cleared his throat. “The next major threat was Harold Saxon,” he said. “Without the TARDIS, I don’t think we need to worry about him.”

 

“Saxon’s not an issue,” River said. “But the Krillitanes are. Luckily they are easily dealt with.”

 

Rose shuddered in remembrance, but added the bat-like creatures to her list. “What’s this about the Rift opening, Jack?”

 

“That was my Torchwood team, Rosie, not the Doctor, so I think we’re going to have to handle that,” he said.

 

She added it to the list, and they shuffled some of the papers, continuing on.

 

“We’re getting into some things that my Doctor has done now,” River said. “Prisoner Zero was tied directly to the Cracks, and I doubt we’ll have to deal with that, but I think we can handle it if we do. Put it down as one of those that we’ll have an emergency plan for, but probably won’t have to handle as it’s a Doctor-related emergency,” she added, shaking her head. “Have you noticed how many of our problems are directly related to him and completely independent of the Earth itself? I swear this planet gets less attention when he’s not around.”

 

Rose laughed at that. Ianto came in with a top off for each of them and Rose smiled up at him.

 

“Go home, kid,” Jack said. “Kiss your girlfriend. Tell her you’re sorry for staying late at the office again. For god’s sake, remember to buy her flowers this time. And take tomorrow off.”

 

“Yes, Captain,” the Welshman said, rolling his eyes. “Should I let Mr. Smith in, since you had a car sent round for him an hour ago, or should I leave him out in the waiting room?”

 

“Send in Mickey Mouse,” Jack said. “And remember what I said about the flowers.”

 

“The Captain will see you now,” Ianto said, and Mickey muttered something from the doorway as he pushed past the other man, who politely shut the door behind him.

 

Rose jumped up and hugged Mickey. “Sorry, Micks,” she said, pulling up another chair for her friend. “We didn’t know you were out there waiting.”

 

“Yeah, well that’s cause the suit wouldn’t announce me, would he?” he grumbled.

 

Jack stood and hugged Mickey. “It’s good to see you, Mickey Mouse,” he said. “Not that you remember me, but we were friends, once upon a time.”

 

“Yeah, Rose mighta mentioned that,” Mickey grumbled. “Don’t think she said anything about a bushy-haired blonde broad, but I might not have caught that part.”

 

“Professor River Song,” she said. “Nice to meet you. Sorry, we’re trying to sort out which events that are coming up we’re going to have to deal with. How do you feel about blowing up 10 Downing Street?” she asked with a smirk.

 

“You’re serious?” Mickey asked, his eyes wide.

 

“Deadly,” River said, shuffling more papers around. “Did we put down the Royal Hope incident?”

 

“No, but that definitely wasn’t his fault,” Jack said. “My team was tracking that plasmavore for days before he showed up. That was just good timing on his part.”

 

Rose added that to the list and looked at the papers in River’s hand. “Lazarus? Oh, god, I have those memories in my head. That was another right place, right time thing,” she said.

 

“In a sense, yes,” River said, “but Saxon was behind that one, so I think that’s a watch and see incident, with an emergency back-up plan in place.”

 

“So you lot are just sitting here planning out the next - what - ten years?” Mickey asked. “You’re barking!”

 

“Welcome to UNIT,” Jack said. “We’ll get you the official orientation on Monday, but you’re going to be working with Tosh in computers from now on. You’re a genius, Mickey Smith, and we need more people like you defending the Earth. And trust me, when the Doctor comes back, and you remember, you’re going to want to be working somewhere that can help you.”

 

“Rose?” Mickey asked, looking at her for reassurance.

 

“I trust him, Mickey. If he says this is where you should be, you’ll be safe here,” she said, jotting down notes about Lazarus on her sheet.

 

“Without the Medusa Cascade, do we have to worry about the Adipose using the Earth as a breeding planet?” Jack asked.

 

“Put it on the watch list,” River said, waving a hand dismissively as she scanned down the list.

 

“ATMOS,” Rose said. “You’re worried about ATMOS.”

 

“Exactly,” River said. “Without the Doctor, in Donna’s aborted timeline in the parallel, it took Jack’s Torchwood team sacrificing themselves on the Sontaran ship to destroy it. We’ll need something far, far better than that if we want to prevent massive loss of life.”

 

Rose wrote ATMOS in large letters on her list, nodding as she did, and looked at River as reassuringly as she could. “We’ll figure it out. We have what we didn’t have before - years to plan.”

 

“Thank you, Rose,” River said.

 

“Which leaves the 456,” Jack said, closing his eyes and lowering his head.

 

“And here, Jack, we have the same advantage that we have with ATMOS,” River said. “We know that they are coming. We have years to prepare. We know what works against them, we know how to stop them, how to destroy them, and you have weapons at your disposal that you didn’t have last time: you have me, Rose, and Mickey.”

 

“Thank you,” he whispered.

 

With shaking hands, Rose scrawled the numbers on the sheet.

 

“If we survive all of that,” River said, her voice unsteady, “then we will all be there for the wedding of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, on the day that Amy remembers her imaginary friend, and the Doctor returns. The timeline will be restored. It’s essential that we do as little to damage things that have happened as possible, while preventing as many of these disasters as we can.”

 

“Micks, I know you don’t remember any of this,” Rose said. “If you don’t want to stay - I know this has to be boring for you,” she offered.

 

“No way, babe,” he said. “This is my job now, looking out for you. And if that means sitting here, taking notes while you lot sort out how to stop the world from ending, then that’s what I’ll do.”

 

The three Impossible Things in the room looked at him with pride shining in their eyes.

 

“Mickey Smith, you are a _star_!” River said, her eyes moist.

 

“Yeah, and don’t any of you forget it,” he said. “I’m not the tin dog!” He made a face of utter confusion. “Why the hell - Rose, was there a tin dog?” he asked.

 

Rose started laughing. “Yes, actually, there was. Right before you started travelling with us, you said you didn’t want to be the tin dog and asked to come along.”

 

“Nothing is ever truly forgotten,” River said, a soft smile on her face. “Other things might leak through. That’s okay.”

 

Rose’s eyes were gritty and she rubbed them, trying to get that awful feeling out. The window behind River was just starting to brighten, and she realised that the sun must be coming up. They’d been at this all night. She caught herself yawning, and wondered if it was natural, or triggered by the sudden realisation, and she laughed.

 

“Sounds like it’s time to get Rosie to bed,” Jack teased. “C’mon, we’ve got some barracks downstairs you guys can bunk in for the weekend.”

 

River bit her lip and looked at them for a moment while they shuffled the papers into some semblance of order and Jack found a folder to put them in, handing it off to Rose for safe-keeping. “Would it be alright if I stayed, as well? I know I’m not officially UNIT staff, but I was hoping I could be listed as a consultant for the project,” she said, for the first time, Rose heard something that could almost be labelled uncertainty in the other woman’s voice.

 

“I’ll set you three up in the officer’s quarters,” Jack said without missing a beat. “It’s a bit nicer than the standard barracks, and you’ll have your own head.”

 

The officer’s quarters were far from luxurious, but there was a private bathroom, complete with an enclosed shower, the beds were comfortable, and it was below ground, so it was cool and blessedly dark. Rose was asleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit info-dumpy, sorry, but there's just SO much to cover between River and the others. The next chapter shows a lot of the developing friendship between River and Rose. I'm terribly sorry, but the Doctor doesn't make his appearance for several chapters yet. Hope everyone enjoyed!
> 
> Beta read by the fantastic Nyruserra and OkamiNoYume.


	3. The Doctor's Wife and The Bad Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the fantastic Nyruserra - Ny, you've been with me for almost a decade. Without you, I'm nothing. Without you, I cease to exist. Without you - ah, hell, you get the point. You're my future wife, once our husbands make us merry widows (after a suitable mourning period, of course), my best friend, and the other half of my soul. Also, since this note is making absolutely no sense - I'm pretty sure you've got the brain tonight. Be a dear and let me have it tomorrow?

**Chapter 3.**

**The Doctor's Wife and the Bad Wolf**

When she woke, it was to find that River was sitting up in her bunk across the room, paging sadly through a journal, its covers worn, pages yellowed with age and completely, utterly blank. Mickey was still snoring beneath her, knackered from the night before.

"S'it morning?" Rose asked, running a hand through her tangled hair.

"Early afternoon, but no worry," River said, closing the journal. The faded covers were a shade of blue that caused a sharp pang in Rose's chest. "Jack's off with his team on a mission. We're all to rest as much as possible today." She noticed Rose staring at the journal. "You're welcome to look at it if you like. The pages are all blank until he comes back."

River stood and passed the book to her, and Rose took it, pressing her fingers into the panelled leather cover, running the pads of her fingers along the grooves in the worn fabric. "I thought I was mad, y'know," she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Wasn't sure if I wanted it all to be real, but I took the job in the shop - just in case I wasn't mad, in case it wasn't all a dream." She felt the tears slipping down her cheeks but she didn't take her hands from the journal to wipe them away. "This is the TARDIS. Those Autons, last night - all of last night, really - it didn't make it real. But this book," she laughed, a bitter, angry laugh. "A blank, blue book with nothing in it - it's real now. Because nowhere else on Earth does this shade of blue exist."

"I know," River said, rubbing her back in small circles. "The TARDIS made that journal. The Doctor gave it to me. I used it to keep track of our travels together, since our lives happened back-to-front. We used to sync our diaries."

Rose tried to imagine her first Doctor keeping a diary and started laughing, trying to keep it quiet so as not to wake Mickey, but when his laughter joined hers, she knew he'd been eavesdropping.

"Why do I think that's funny?" he asked.

"It just is, trust me," Rose said, shaking her head and blinking back the tears.

"I never met your first Doctor, Rose, but I understand he was something quite spectacular," River said.

Rose handed back the diary, with its blank pages - adventures that had never happened. "He was fantastic. Worth everything and then some," she whispered, thinking of the adventures they'd had.

"We're going to get him back, Rose," River promised, crossing the room.

They took turns showering, and spent most of the day sleeping, making idle small talk, and eating the meals that were delivered by uniformed men. Rose was too tired, physically and emotionally, to care if they were guards or not.

* * *

Before working with UNIT, Rose had considered herself disciplined, physically fit, and fairly intelligent. While Jack ran missions with the team he'd been given (according to River, pre-empting Owen, Ianto, and Tosh was fine, but the rest of their team had to wait until it fell into the 'natural' timeline to recruit them), and Mickey attended uni and worked heavily in computer sciences with Tosh, Rose's days were almost completely devoted to physical training, weapons training, and the most bizarre series of classes she'd ever taken. River, of course, was her instructor.

On their first full day of 'employment' at UNIT, Jack had explained that while Mickey had not, in either universe, done a course at uni, Rose had gotten degrees in both astrophysics and astronomy in the parallel world. ; UNIT was willing to produce documentation to that effect, giving her glowing recommendations from professors they had on staff in the subjects, but that they wanted her to focus her studies on her other skills.

And so after having herself driven into the ground during some form of PT, and then beaten half to a pulp by whatever martial arts instructor she had that day, usually with River at her side, the two women honed their skills with a wide variety of weapons before retiring to a comfortable library, where they would put their feet up, and the omnipotent Ianto brought them fantastic tea while River lectured on whatever subject that happened to strike her fancy that day.

They covered Time Traces, philosophical theories, various ethical systems from across the Universe, (with Rose adding in a few of the more interesting ones that had cropped up in Pete's World), and even literature. One of River's favourite, and Rose's least favourite, topics was the Bad Wolf, both in legend and in reality.

"What you have to understand, sweetie," River said one afternoon as they were curled up cosily in their favourite pair of brown leather armchairs, legs tucked beneath them with a piecrust table serving as a buffer between them, a teapot and a plate of petit fours within easy reach in front of a large holographic window that was centuries ahead of its time and tended to show a different scene. On this particular winter afternoon, the breath-taking view was an island vista, complete with coconut trees and the ocean in the background. River paused to pop a cake in her mouth and savour it before continuing. "Sorry," she said, ducking her head guiltily. "What you have to understand is that the Bad Wolf phenomenon was first documented in London in 2006. It was specifically designed to get your attention — by you, I might add — but it garnered the attention of the local police as well. The graffiti seemed to have no purpose. There were rumours that it was a gang, but no gang ever came out with that name. Kids would scrawl the words with no idea why they were doing it; when caught, they'd just say it seemed like a good thing to write."

"And they did it because the words were already there," Rose said, sighing deeply. "Because I did that."

This was actually something she hated to think about. Since she'd come to accept that she wasn't actually mad, but rather a dimension-hopping, time-travelling, not-quite-human who was essentially reliving her own timeline with her memories of the original intact thanks to something that hadn't happened in the new timeline but had happened across all of time and space and therefore couldn't be erased, making her quite possibly the most anomalous being in all of creation, she tried to avoid thinking too much about the Bad Wolf. Dream Rose, Other Rose, Future or Past Rose, whatever you wanted to call the Rose that she would never become - that Rose had come to grips with the Bad Wolf when the half-human Doctor had completed a bond that had begun the moment she'd absorbed the Vortex. But remembering that experience and physically living it were two separate things, and she didn't quite know how to wrap her brain around the entire thing.

"Exactly," River said. "But it was beyond that. The Blaidd Drwg Project. The signs on Shan Shen, including the sign on the TARDIS itself, all changing to say Bad Wolf once Donna had given the Doctor the warning you passed along. Dårlig Ulv-Stranden - Bad Wolf Bay. You saw everything in that moment, Rose. What's perhaps most interesting is that you would have seen this, too. This whole, impossible series of events. The Bad Wolf planned for this, made it possible for you to retain your memories, possibly even for me and Jack to be here to support you."

"Say you're right, River," Rose said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "Just, for a moment, imagine that the Bad Wolf knew all of this was coming, and planned for it all. Why separate us in the first place? Why go through all that trouble to trap me there, and abandon me on the other side with someone else, even if it was another him, if I was always supposed to end up with him to begin with?"

"Because he thinks he knows best for everyone," River said. "He thinks that what's best for everyone else is to be as far away from him as possible, though he's selfish enough to keep them for as long as he can. But in the end, they leave him, because they have to; one way or the other," she looked away for a moment, perhaps unconsciously looking towards that impossibly-blue journal Rose had tucked away earlier. "In theory, he knows that time can be rewritten, Rose, but he'll never believe that it should be - not in a way that benefits him."

There was something Rose had been meaning to say, a question she'd been wanting to ask since River had first appeared. She was only nineteen, and there was no telling how old River was, but she'd travelled with that mad man long enough, and she had his memories up to the creation of the half-human metacrisis; she knew the name River Song, and she knew enough to be, if not wildly jealous, then at least highly speculative of the other woman's motives. Rose opened her eyes and took a deep breath, staring the other woman dead in the face.

"River, until that moment on the beach, there was one distinct advantage you had over me," she said. "But as of right now, we are both the Doctor's wife. What, precisely, do you gain from rewriting his life?"

"Are we?" River said, raising an eyebrow. "Funnily enough, I always thought only one of us was." Rose noticed that the other woman never said which one of them she thought held the title. She reached into her seemingly bottomless bag and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book. "This is one of the references I first discovered when I was researching the Doctor at Luna University," River said, handing Rose the book.

Rose took it, reading the worn gold embossed title,  _A Definitive History of Earth_. "I'm sorry, River, but what does this have to do with anything?" she said, holding the book out to the other woman.

"That particular volume - it's an encyclopaedia, in case you were curious - covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And as for what the book has to do with anything, I suggest you look into the chapter on the Bad Wolf," River said with a smirk.

Rolling her eyes, Rose obliged, her jaw falling open as the chapter's facing page showed what appeared to be a highly intricate drawing of circles. To anyone else, it would be incomprehensible. But Rose recognised it for what it was; Old High Gallifreyan - in a book that was written in English. And what it translated into - well, it could start or ends wars, at least part of it.

"There are three people in the Universe that can read that," River said. "Two of them are sitting in this room, and the third technically doesn't exist. There is no translation matrix that exists now, nor will there ever exist one that could ever decipher the language. Nor would any scanner ever recognise it as a language at all. Any archaeologist would simply dismiss it as beautiful, symbolistic art, and move on." River shook her head. "Turn to the publishing information," she said.

Rose did, and there, under the standard information, was another circular design, smaller than the other, that she had no trouble identifying: she'd seen it before, after all, loads of times. Just two words, everywhere she went: Bad Wolf.

"It shows up in every edition, and has since the year 200100," River said. "The Bad Wolf created this encyclopaedia. The Bad Wolf scattered bits of Old High Gallifreyan throughout the series. Whenever the books are recopied, each "drawing" is recaptured using the highest quality scanning equipment available at the time, and faithfully reproduced so that not so much as a single swirl from the original images are missing. But it's no coincidence that the most dangerous, powerful word in the entire Universe appears interlinked with your name, Rose Tyler, nor that the drawing is always, always, facing the chapter on the Bad Wolf in the volume that covers the time period of Earth in which you lived. As I said, I'm fairly certain one of us is the Doctor's wife - I never said it was me. It must have baffled him, all those years, how I knew his name that day, knowing he had to have told me, knowing he would have to tell me, and never quite being able to bring himself to do it, to complete that circular paradox."

"But - you love him," Rose managed around the lump in her throat. She couldn't tell if her tears were for herself or for River - maybe they were for both of them.

"Do I? Or did I love the idea of him, much as a child loves the idea of a superhero or a fairy tale prince who comes to rescue her from a dragon or a monster?" River's laughter was bitter. "In what way, exactly, did I differ in my love for him than the uncrowned Queen of France did in hers? We both created an image in our minds of what he was, and we loved that image. For her, he was a Lonely Angel, despite the fact that he obviously had you - the loneliness she saw was not something she could have fixed, and even with such a brief foray into his mind, she would have seen that. And for me?" She sighed. "At first, he was that hero, saving me from myself. And as he grew less and less heroic, and more angry, I became stronger, harder, and more bitter, knowing that even as I loved him more, he knew me less. And when he was finally no more than a stranger who knew me not at all, a stranger whose name I held because it was printed in a language that I foolishly believed only we two could read, I hated him. I hated him for taking the coward's way out, for never properly making me his wife, for having his name written across the stars with yours, even though I didn't know who you were."

"I'm sorry," Rose said, reaching across the table for the other woman's hand. "I'm so sorry."

"It's alright now, sweetie," River said. "I thought myself quite, quite grown up then, you see. But it wasn't until I was rescued from that by a friend, with a little bit of jiggery-pokery, that I realised how very young I really was. In some ways, Rose, I was younger than you were when you stepped into that box the first time. You'd at least had your heart properly broken before you ever met him. I didn't even know what that word meant."

"That's one word we all have to learn the hard way," Rose said, squeezing River's hand. "And it means something different to each of us."

River squeezed back and smiled. "Believe it or not, Rose, that was a very long time ago for me," she said. "I've had more years than you can imagine to get over that daft man, and I had the help of a very good man - the very best man I've ever known - to make it through that and beyond."

Rose had her suspicions about who that might be, but kept silent. "So, if you're from that far in the future, where is the proper River Song?"

"Oh, right now, Mels is raising hell with her best friend Amelia Pond in Leadworth. She's an orphan, you see," River said. "And the River who was there when the Pandorica opened, who was flying an exploding TARDIS? She pops in on them, from time to time, watching over them from a distance, but it's too painful for her. She suspects the Doctor has a plan to come back, but she hasn't a clue what it is, and - well, quite frankly, she's a bit useless at the moment. Her whole life was the Doctor, and in a Universe where he doesn't exist, she doesn't know what to do with herself."

"That's so sad," Rose said. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, sweetie," River said, cheering up. "Tomorrow we'll work on focusing your Time Senses a bit, because you should have them, at least in theory. And you might be able to see a bit of what I see. Jack can, if he tries very, very hard, but frankly, he hasn't the patience for it at this point in his life. He gets better with age, but then most men do."

"What do you see?" Rose shifted so that she was facing River, who looked across the room as though staring into a deep well.

"Endless possibilities," she said, her voice growing distant. "Not quite as much as you could see as the Bad Wolf, but nearly so. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be. Most of what I see are the probabilities. Of several, two timelines are forming, two sets of memories sitting side-by-side in my head, rewriting so much of my life, beginning as early as my infancy, though for you, I suppose it would begin with a blue envelope. If this works, I'll have conflicting memories, and I won't know you, then, Rose. I won't trust you, and I won't like you. Back-to-front, remember."

"You'll think you're his wife, and so, too, will he," Rose guessed.

"Yes, precisely," River said. "But - it resolves itself. I can't tell you how. I've already told you more than I ever will tell him. In the other timeline, you're not there. He never once mentioned your name, but you were in all of those books I studied. Dame Rose Tyler of the Powell Estate, banished from England by Queen Victoria in the 1779 only to be born over two hundred years later. Obviously a companion, but while I could get him to talk about all of the others, over time, I never mentioned you, and neither did he, despite the room across from his that no one was ever, ever allowed to touch. He was and will always be  _your_ Doctor, Rose Tyler, no matter how many regenerations he has."

"I'm not so sure about that, myself," Rose said, the words coming out slowly, as this was something she'd been considering herself over the past several months of working with UNIT. "He was clinging to something he'd lost, before, but the dynamic between us changed when he did. It's bound to change again, especially given the circumstances. What you see are probabilities, River, you said it yourself. They aren't certainties."

They changed the subject then, moved on to lighter topics, and soon their lessons shifted focus until they were working almost entirely on attuning Rose's Time Sense. As frustrating as it was for Rose, she was highly limited in what she could 'see', and it was clearest when she was touching River in some way, as though the other woman's presence amplified it. They spent an entire afternoon just speculating on that as the time for the "crash landing" in the Thames grew nearer. As hard as it was for Rose to believe, she and Mickey had been with UNIT for nearly a year, and her mind and body were like well-oiled machines, and the things Mickey could do on computers now was nothing short of miraculous, as far as she was concerned.

Jack and Mickey had joined them for this particular "lesson", and the four of them were nestled comfortably in their little library, unwinding after a mission that had pulled all of them out into the field. Rose and Mickey were being called on more missions, and Rose was grateful for all the training she'd received, both in the parallel world's Torchwood and with UNIT.

She had her feet, encased in fuzzy pink socks with purple polka dots on them, propped on the low table in front of her, a cup of steaming tea warming her hands, and a plate of delicious petit fours sitting on the little round table at her side — one of these days she was really going to ask Ianto where he found those things; they were clearly heaven-made-into-tiny-cakes and she couldn't get enough of them — particularly the lemon ones. With a pang, she noticed that, as usual, there was a rather healthy portion of banana ones that no one would touch, and she knew that Jack always ordered them in memory of the man they were all there to save.

"I've been thinking over your problem, Rose," River said, sitting her teacup on the table between their chairs. "Without the proper equipment, which frankly doesn't exist on Earth, in any time period — or, really, anywhere but the TARDIS — I can't confirm my suspicions, but I'd been basing our lessons on the assumption that you were rather like me. And it's still possible you are, of course," she added, holding up a hand to stop any questions. "The both of us were exposed, at different times in our lives, to the Vortex at its rawest form. You, by absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS, and me — well, for that I can only say 'spoilers' and wait for you to find out on your own. I did tell you that there were things that I wouldn't be able to tell you."

They nodded, though Jack looked put out, and Mickey just rolled his eyes. More than the others, he'd heard 'spoilers' more times than he could count.

"I know you're familiar with regeneration, so I obviously don't have to explain it to you, but I have to ask if you've ever personally experienced it." It was delicately put, and Rose wasn't sure exactly what River was asking.

"D'you mean, have I ever witnessed it, firsthand, because you should know that I have, or d'you mean, have I ever personally regenerated?" Rose asked, looking at the other woman with open curiosity.

"Ah, yes, I suppose I could have been a bit clearer," River said, chuckling a bit. "I do, of course, know that you've witnessed the Doctor regenerating. It was the latter I was asking about, and judging by that look on your face, I'm going to guess that the answer to my question is no, and continue to postulate. My Time Sense wasn't nearly as developed as it is when I was first exposed to the Vortex." Here River paused, as though something were paining her greatly, before taking a deep breath and continuing. "In fact, I'm not sure I was aware of it until after I'd regenerated the first time, and even then it was far weaker than yours is now. When I regenerated the second time, it was better, but still not fantastic. But the more time I spent with the TARDIS, developing my relationship with her, the stronger it became."

"So," Jack said, frowning, "you think Rosie will be able to regenerate — and that her Time Sense will get stronger each time she does?"

"I'm not sure, honestly," River admitted. "Like Rose, I'm 'human-plus'. I suspect we're the same sort of 'human-plus', but I was — oh, what's a delicate word for it — enhanced, a bit, I suppose you could say, in order to make that 'plus' just a bit stronger." River looked very uncomfortable at having to admit to any of this, and Rose felt a pang of sympathy for the other woman.

Mickey's eyes were darting between the two women, as though he were trying to see the similarities between them and failing, as though their abnormalities should be apparent on the surface. Jack had hunched forward, with his elbows on his knees, paying rapt attention to the "lesson", absorbing it all.

"On the other hand," River said, looking between them before resting her eyes on Rose, "my exposure to the Vortex, to the TARDIS' Heart, was gentle and mild compared to what yours was. I've never held that power in my hands. I've never made all of Time bow to my command. And as I've said, repeatedly, time is in flux right now. It's possible that just because I have no 'memory' of Rose regenerating in either of the prominent timelines in my head doesn't mean it doesn't happen. That could be protected because I don't need to know it."

"How many times have you regenerated?" Rose asked, curious.

"Spoilers," River said, smirking. "Though, I suspect you may do well to remember something very interesting that regeneration energy is capable of, at least in the first fifteen hours, regardless of what you may be told otherwise."

'Witchcraft,' the leader of the Sycorax had called it, Rose remembered. 'Time Lord,' the  _new_  new Doctor had said, some of the darkness he'd kept simmering so well beneath the surface in his last body coming forward in that moment. She suspected that was what River wanted her to remember, though — perhaps something to do with the way the hand had grown back. Maybe it was one of those River-things that would make sense when it happened. She filed it away for future reference.

"So, if I can regenerate, my Time Sense should get stronger when I do — if I do?" Rose asked, bringing the subject back round to the topic of the day.

"Unless you spend a lot of time on the TARDIS, which naturally seems to boost any abilities you have from that 'plus' aspect of your nature," River confirmed. "Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you about. How long were you in that parallel before you started to get sick?"

Rose stared at her — she hadn't told anyone about that in the other timeline. Not her mum, nor Pete, nor the Torchwood doctor that had been checking her out after all of her dimension hops, and especially not Micks. She hadn't told anyone, because she didn't want them to stop her from trying to get back.

"Don't try to deny it," River said. "I've told you, you wear your emotions all over your face. Honestly, you need to work on your poker face."

"Dunno," Mikey said, half-serious. "She's got a decent resting bitchface when she wants to have."

"It's true," Jack said. "The problem is that it's almost never seen because she's nearly always happy and smiling, and when she isn't, she's sad. But give her a moment to just — be — and BOOM! Pokerface of Doom!"

Even Rose had to laugh at that one. But River wouldn't allow them to help Rose deflect the question. "How long?" she prompted.

"Dunno, really," she said, hedging slightly. "Maybe a few months. Started getting headaches, I guess. Thought maybe I wasn't sleeping enough, what with the cannon and everything. Then they got worse, right around the time we started making the jumps. I fainted a few times, thankfully no one saw, had a few nosebleeds. Once we started making the early jumps, I could pass it off as a side-effect of the canon." She shrugged. "I didn't want anyone to worry."

"The golden song, you couldn't really hear it anymore, could you?" River asked. Rose shook her head. "That was the TARDIS. You were cut off from her, and you were dying. If you hadn't made your way back, you would have died within a few years."

"But we've got almost five years before the TARDIS comes back!" Jack shouted, knocking over the coffee table as he jumped to his feet.

"Rose, can you hear the golden song now?" River asked.

"S'wrong," Rose said, closing her eyes and concentrating on it. "S'all sour and yellow. Off — I dunno. It's there, but it's — so  _wrong_."

"Nothing is ever truly forgotten," Mickey murmured. "That's what you said to me, the night we showed up here, remember? Is she — I dunno — keeping that TARDIS-thing alive because she remembers it, and so it's keeping her alive, too — only since it's not really real, it sounds wrong to her?"

"I've said it once, and I will say it again." River grinned at him. "Mickey Smith. You. Are. A.  _Star_."

Mickey ducked his head and blushed.

"You're absolutely right, of course. The TARDIS exists, in a sort of half-existence, because we three remember her. And Rose also has other things now, that she didn't have during those years in the parallel world, that are helping to keep her stable. She has the bond with the half-human Time Lord, which strengthened her connection to the Vortex, made it possible for her to survive all those years when she was alone with only mild symptoms, I'd guess. And here, she also has her connections to me and Jack. Jack, having been directly created with the power of the Bad Wolf, carries a bit of the Vortex inside him — not enough to make him human-plus, but enough that it helps to stabilise her. Being around me, another 'human-plus' with a connection to the TARDIS, and therefore, the Vortex, helps keep the symptoms at bay as well."

"So, no dying for Rose Tyler, then," Jack said, nodding. "Always good to know. And she'll get stronger Time Sense from regeneration, if she's able, and prolonged exposure to the TARDIS. And — if I understand it, the latter isn't really an option anyway, because without the TARDIS, she's going to die?"

"She doesn't have to live in the TARDIS, no," River said, shaking her head. "At least I don't think she should have to do. But at least a casual visit, every few years, to keep from getting sick, as well as staying in her own universe, ought to do the trick."

Rose was honestly a bit relieved at that. This Doctor who could so casually rewrite the entire history of the Universe, who could unwrite everything that had ever happened to them, who could so very casually ignore that his companion had never so much as heard of a Dalek when he'd taken her with him, even though the skies had been full of them only a few years before - did she truly want to travel with that Doctor. What had Jack called him? "The man who forgets". He seemed very, very good at that, but if that was the case…

There was something not right with that description, something so very not right.

Rose pieced together what she remembered of everything that had happened to bring about this alternate timeline she and the others were living, everything that could possibly have brought her back to this Universe. The Pandorica was the key, absolutely, but that Pandorica had only the molecules of the Universe as it had existed in the moment it had been created - and she hadn't existed in that timeline. It was him — the Doctor — "the man who forgets" who had brought her back, somehow.

She voiced her theory and River looked at her, shaking her head sadly. "Oh, sweetie, I wish that were true, so very, very much."

Mickey frowned at her, getting his back up at River's dismissal of Rose's theory. "Why can't it be true? You keep going on about how much Rose means to this Doctor-bloke, yeah? Why couldn't he have been the one that brought her back?"

It wasn't River that answered, but Jack. "Because the Doctor wasn't the one with that crack pouring into his brain — that was Amy Pond, and that's what all of this hinges on — her ability to remember the Doctor in four years, bring him back, and reset time. For him to have brought Rose back, the way Amy is going to bring the Doctor back, he'd have to have been on this side of the crack when she was pulled back over, and that's not what happened. What happened is he disappeared from time. He was unwritten. All the things he ever did were erased. The things he did that affected Rose's life never happened."

Mickey frowned, shook his head, and said, "Nope, still not getting it. How is it going to work when he comes back — won't she just be pulled back?"

Jack looked at River, as though to say 'this one is all you'.

"There is no easy answer to why these things weren't rewritten exactly the same — the Universe, as it is, right now, will fall back into line on 26 June 2010. We four are preserving as much of the original timeline as possible, because that is what the Doctor's companions do, even when the Doctor doesn't exist — we do what we can, to the best of our not-inconsiderable abilities, and we make sure that the world as he remembers it is as close to what he left it as it can be. The problem is that we cannot recreate every event, and once erased, they can never be reproduced. Canary Wharf, Torchwood, the Medusa Cascade — these events cannot be recreated. And these three events shaped her future."

Mickey just shook his head again. "You know, your logic is never gonna make sense to me. I'm going to bed."


	4. World War III

Three weeks passed before Rose was woken by her alarm blaring from across the room. Over the past year, she, River, Mickey, and Jack had taken to sharing a flat deep inside UNIT HQ, and the empty bed across the room startled her for a moment before she remembered that River was out of town on a mission to track down what seemed to be a Cyber signal originating in America, of all places. The timing was awful, but they couldn’t just ignore it, even if today was the day—she, Mickey, and Jack would just have to stop the Slitheen and save Harriet Jones themselves.

 

Upstairs in the conference room, Jack was briefing his team. “Tosh, I need you to cover for Owen—he’s a no-show today, and I’ll have his ass for it later, but UNIT’s going to need someone to inspect alien remains. I’m going to be on-site and I want you on the inside at Albion Hospital. Mickey Mouse, you’re here, on base with the computers. I need you on the sub’s weapon systems, ready to the fire the minute I give the word. Ianto and Rose have been working with administration inside Downing Street for the past several weeks, so we have our in. I’ll be invited in as part of the panel of experts called in once the party really gets started. I’m a Code Nine, which will give me immediate access. I’ll lead the Slitheen on a merry chase, ending up in the Cabinet Room with Rose, Ianto, and Harriet Jones. Once that happens, Mickey will issue the UNIT evac, getting civilians and all UNIT personnel out of Downing Street before he launches.”

 

“And you’re positive, Captain Cheesecake, that Rose and Ianto are going to survive this?” Mickey asked. The old nicknames had come out at some point over the past year, revived by Jack, and whenever things were particularly tense, the two reverted to them as a way of lessening tension.

 

“I’ll be fine, Micks,” Rose said. “Remember, all of this has already happened. We’re just doing it a bit differently. If I have any say in this, once the Slitheen vacate the Cabinet Room, me, Ianto, and Harriet will take up residence in there and initiate the lockdown. Jack can flash himself in with his Vortex Manipulator, and we’ll never even come within reach of those things.” She shuddered.

 

“Bog monsters,” Mickey muttered. “They look like bog monsters, right?”

 

They’d deliberately not shown the team pictures of the Slitheen, so they wouldn’t fear the massive green aliens, and Rose raised an eyebrow at Mickey’s description. It was exactly how he’d described them in the other timeline.

 

“Yeah, Micks,” was all she said.

 

“I don’t like this, babe, you know I don’t, but I got your back. Anything happens to her, Cheesecake, and we’ll see how long it takes you to come back to life when your head is in space and your body’s burned to ashes.”

 

Rose’s eyes flashed gold for a moment, and everyone stared at her. “Rosie?” Jack asked, but she shook her head.

 

“Nothing,” she said, brushing aside the timeline that had flared before her, a vision of a box with a preserved head—a preserved _live_ head—and a headless body that moved on its own, a warrior for the Papal Mainframe’s cult of Silence. Winking at her from the box was a handsome face she recognised all too well. “Just—a timeline flaring into existence. Shouldn’t have recognised it without River here to help, honestly, but it was very strong.”

 

Jack looked at her oddly but nodded. “Well, you and Ianto need to head in for the last day of your internship if you don’t want to rouse suspicions about what you know will happen.”

 

Rose and Ianto left the room and took a bus into ‘work’ together, chatting about the fictional lives they’d created as covers for their ‘characters’. They were mates from uni, according to their records, and they lived near one another, so they often commuted together. Rose was having boyfriend trouble, so she often asked Ianto for advice on the morning trip, and Ianto admitted to being attracted to someone at ‘work’, despite being engaged—Rose suspected that was not at all made up. She’d been watching Jack and Ianto for the better part of the past year, and the attraction on Jack’s part was far from one-sided.

 

Granted, Rose ceded to herself, one would have to be blind, deaf, and mute to be completely immune to Jack but it was more than that with Ianto. Ianto wasn’t just attracted to Jack—he looked after him, and Jack let him; which was more than he’d ever let anyone, except perhaps Rose, do for him.

 

She remembered that, hours later, as she, and not Jack, gave Mickey the command to fire the missile. Too slow—funny little human brain, how did she get around in it?—she hadn’t _thought_ , hadn’t _remembered_ that sometimes, not everyone lived. Someone had to die for her and Harriet to escape the Slitheen inside the Cabinet room the first time. There’d been a low-level lackey, a secretary of some sort in the original timeline—and this time there was Ianto Jones.

 

Ianto who was cradled to Jack’s chest as her ageless friend wept, rocking the body of what he’d confessed was his lover in the other timeline—his lover he’d failed to save—while they waited for a missile to come and blow them all up. And Harriet Jones, brave, indomitable Harriet Jones, holding tightly to Rose’s hand when the blast hit, ordered Jack to his feet as though she were Prime Minister already.

 

“There will be a time to weep later, for your brave friend and all the others we lost, but now, Captain, it is time to rebuild,” the woman said. Rose nodded. She, too, would weep. Mourn her mistakes, her carelessness, and move on.

 

“Take him back to HQ,” she told Jack. “I can handle cleanup.”

 

“You never handle cleanup,” Jack said. “I can do this.” Rose shook her head and hugged him.

 

“You shouldn’t have to do it alone, not all the time,” she argued. “No one should. Not you, not me, not River—not even the Doctor. That’s why we have each other. Now go, Jack. Take him back, and let me handle this. And make sure Lisa knows what he really died for. None of the usual UNIT bullshit, yeah?”

 

“I’ll tell her the truth,” he promised, heading back into the steel room that should have been their salvation, not the promising young man’s tomb.

 

The rest of the day was spent at the side of the up-and-coming star of British politics as she gave countless interviews about her harrowing experience inside Downing Street. Harriet Jones was being hailed as a hero, and the woman was certainly happy to share that status with those who had been trapped in the room with her until Rose pulled her aside and asked her to keep her own name and Jack’s out of it. Ianto was given all the praise a hero of Earth, who had sacrificed his life so that others could escape, could be given, and before the day was out there were offerings being made to a large memorial in his honor. Before day’s end, there was an astounding amount of support for Harriet Jones to become the next Prime Minister. By the time Rose finally made it back to her little flat inside HQ, she was exhausted.

 

River was in the sitting room, her eyes red, the chairs they’d moved up from the library a little over a month ago circling a round table in front of the fireplace where a merrily crackling fire was reflecting off a battered old silver tea service.

 

“Did you know?” Rose asked, pulling her sensible boots off by the door, stretching out her senses to see if Jack or Mickey were anywhere nearby.

 

“Jack’s still with Lisa,” River said. “Owen took Mickey to the pub to get him very, very drunk. The rest of us might be used to this life, but it hasn’t happened to Mickey yet.”

 

Sock-clad feet making no noise as she crossed the room and curled up in ‘her’ chair, Rose repeated her question.

 

“I knew it was a possibility,” River admitted, closing her eyes. “Ianto Jones died in 2009 during the 456 incident. There was always the possibility that while his death wasn’t a fixed point, exactly, that he was not going to survive to see the Doctor’s return. Sending him with you on this mission was a calculated risk, but it wasn’t my decision.”

 

“You could have warned us, River,” Rose snapped. “If we’d known that Ianto could have died, then we could have protected him better!”

 

“Whose life would you have given in his place, Rose?” River demanded, opening her eyes to glare at her. “Whose husband, whose son, whose brother would you have sacrificed so that Ianto Jones could live?”

 

Rose let the tears she had been holding back since the Slitheen had snapped her friend’s neck earlier in the day free. “It was always going to be someone, wasn’t it?”

 

She wasn’t surprised when River didn’t answer. River never did when Rose already knew the answers.

 

“Who else?” Rose asked.

 

“Owen,” River said, her voice dull, eyes lifeless. “Tosh. Possibly Gwen. Jack will die in more ways than your or I could ever have imagined. But you saw how it happens—the final separation.”

 

“They take him as a weapon against the Doctor,” Rose said, remembering the flash of a timeline she’d gotten earlier. “He becomes the first Headless Monk.”

 

“Exactly,” River said. “It’s so far into the future as to be almost not worth worrying about—they’ll steal him out of time. The Doctor will rescue his head, of course, but by then it will be too late. They’ll have advanced far enough that Jack’s body will never be able to reform.”

 

“And he’ll evolve into the Face of Boe,” Rose said, laughing a bit as she imagined her vain friend as a wrinkled, tentacled head. “He’ll be older than the Doctor someday.”

 

“Perhaps,” River admitted. “But there will be others. Jack is capable of evolving so much, because of course, when anything lives that long, evolution is bound to take effect.”

 

And Rose remembered something, from Satellite 5, from before she’d met Jack, and she started to laugh. “Oh my god,” she managed to gasp. “He gets pregnant!”

 

River just smiled and sipped her tea, grimacing as she did. Rose picked up her own cup and took a sip, making a face as she tasted it.

 

“In five hundred years, River, I think you’d have learned by now to make a decent cup of tea,” she grumbled as she picked up the pot and headed for the kitchen.

 

“Sweetie, I never told you how old I was,” River called and Rose spun to look at her.

 

“How did I know that?” Rose asked, staring at her.

 

River grinned. “As painful as today was, for all of us, we’ve strengthened the timeline, just a bit. We’ve tightened the connection between this unwritten history and the history the Doctor wrote with you, and by doing so, we’ve brought the Doctor one step closer to returning. Your Time Sense is a bit stronger than it was before, and I haven’t been shielding. You picked it up.”

 

London mourned for Ianto Jones, but none more than the four UNIT agents who shared a flat inside HQ, who had relied on the Welshman for tea, for backup, for a shoulder to cry on in times of need. Ianto Jones had been the center upon which they all spun, and without him the entire team was threatening to fly off at any moment.

 

They barely had time to recover from his death before it was time to confront his murderer. Even River was not forgiving.

 

“I thought you said we had to preserve the timelines,” Rose said, looking down at the smoking hole in the head of the Slitheen who had been masquerading as Margaret Blaine, wishing she could feel something other than pleasure that this creature, this thing, that had tried to kill her, tried to rip the TARDIS apart, and had killed Ianto, was dead.

 

“And so we should have,” River said, shrugging as she tucked her gun back into its holster. “Sometimes, though, it’s worthwhile to get a little bit of revenge.”

 

Rose stared at the other woman, whose eyes were lit with a sort of disturbing enjoyment, and she wondered what it was River was seeing as she stared into the distance, through the Blaidd Drwg sign in front of them.

 

They cleaned up their ‘mess’ and Jack took them all down to his old Torchwood base, which was there, just—empty. “This is where I stood, listening to the Rift opening over my head, knowing that an actual mortal me was up there, with Rosie, Mickey, and the Doctor, and knowing I couldn’t do anything to stop what was happening,” he said, staring up at the ceiling.

 

His eyes seemed to catch on something, and he faced an office that appeared to be suspended from the ceiling. “That was my office,” he said, pointing. “Ianto…” he turned, and River reached for him, allowing him to cry without saying a word.

 

“We should leave, Jack,” Rose said, reaching for his hand, but he seemed to pull himself together and shook his head.

 

“I’ve already asked UNIT to take over this location,” he said. “We’ll all be moving here before the year is out. I don’t think any of us could live in that flat for much longer, and I’ve had to live here without him before.”

 

“We’re not living at the Hub, Harkness,” River said, swatting his shoulder. “I’ll have a flat for the four of us by week’s end. You can handle the movers,” she told him, and Rose wondered if she saw herself as the mother of this rather odd family—her, Jack, Rose, and Mickey. A rather disloyal thought that perhaps she’d have liked River as a mum better than her own crossed her mind, but she pushed it away.

 

Life in Cardiff was—different—than life in London, at least for Rose. Jack seemed more relaxed, more at home, and she realised how much he’d really hated living in London all those years. Gwen Cooper joined their team, and with Tosh and Owen, they were almost like a family again.

 

There were a lot of days where life seemed to be in slow motion for their quasi-Torchwood team, made up of UNIT members who mostly didn’t remember the Doctor, didn’t remember the timeline they were doing their best to preserve, and Rose would remember her second Doctor telling her mother that trouble was just the bits in between; it had never really seemed that way as they stumbled between one catastrophe to another, but here, in Cardiff, it actually seemed true, and she wondered if this was how it was really supposed to be, and quashed down the disloyal thought almost immediately each time it sprung up.

 

River was spending more time in her proper timeline, only popping in when she was needed for something, or to comfort them when they had an exceptionally bad day. Jack, Gwen, Rose, and Mickey spent most of their time running various missions that kept the Earth safe, completely off the radar of the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants.

 

After the Krillitanes, which was surprisingly easy given what they already knew about the creatures and their vulnerability to their own oil, they were able to bring Donna Noble into their little team; it was a meeting Rose had been looking forward to for the past few years.

 

“Cardiff,” the redhead said, looking around the underground Hub in distaste. “Almost as bad as Leeds.”

 

“Actually, it’s really rather worse,” Jack said, giving his signature grin. Rose just rolled her eyes.

 

“Time and a place, Jack,” she said.

 

“I was just -” he started, but she cut him off.

 

“Saying hello, I know,” she waved him off. “I’ve heard it a thousand times before. I’m borrowing your office for this interview, yeah? Keep Owen away from her—I don’t want to scare her off before she even decides if she wants to come work for us.”

 

She led Donna further into the Hub, grinning as the older woman shrieked at the sight of pteradactyl flying overhead. “It’s alright—completely harmless—well, mostly,” she assured the other woman as she steered her towards Jack’s office.

 

“What kind of place is this?” Donna asked, clearly shaken, as she dropped into a chair across from the cluttered desk.

 

“This, Miss Noble, is UNIT—United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. We’re something of a special tasks branch, stationed here in Cardiff, and our goal is to preserve a timeline that has been erased from existence,” Rose said watching the other woman’s face for any flicker of recognition. “You are here because you played a crucial part in that unwritten timeline, several times over, in fact.”

 

“Yeah, pull the other one, blondie,” Donna said, bitterness creeping into her voice.

 

“Best temp in Chiswick, aren’t you, Donna?” Rose asked, leaning forward with her elbows on the desk, smiling at this woman she remembered so vividly as a broken woman, screaming at the Universe regardless of how little difference she thought it would make, at such odds with her other memories of the Doctor-Donna, brilliant and aware of it, proud of herself and not afraid to show it—all of that potential was held inside the mind of this woman, who was staring at Rose as though she’d lost her mind.

 

“And what’s that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Donna asked.

 

“You’ve heard of Ianto Jones, yeah?” Rose asked.

 

“Who hasn’t? Whole country’s heard of Ianto Jones—the man’s a hero.” Donna rolled her eyes.

 

“Ianto Jones was a member of our team,” Rose said. “He was our—secretary, for lack of a better word. He helped us organise, made us tea—god could that man make tea—kept our spirits up, and eventually he started going into the field in places where the rest of us wouldn’t fit in so well, like Downing Street as an intern.”

 

“So—what, he was undercover for you lot when he died, is that what you’re telling me? And you want me to replace him?” Donna’s eyes got wide. “I ain’t gonna die for no job, blondie!”

 

“We’re not asking you to, Donna,” Rose assured her. “Ianto should never have been in the field—he didn’t have the training for it, and it was our fault for sending him. But we do need someone who can stay in the office. Someone to coordinate missions. Someone to make tea, because quite frankly, we’re all rubbish at it. Even River’s tea is—oh god, I didn’t think anyone could burn tea, but she manages. Jack prefers coffee, dunno how you are with that. Point is, we need you, not just some secretary, because the day is coming, Donna, when that timeline that we’re protecting comes back. And when it does, I can promise you that you’ll want to be here, with us.”

 

“But it’s _Cardiff_ ,” Donna said, and her inflection was almost a perfect imitation of Rose’s first Doctor’s, once upon a time, as they were trapped in a basement together, that Rose couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“Yeah, it’s not my favorite place in the world, either,” she admitted. She continued to coax Donna along, focusing on the conversation with half her mind, the other half delving into the other woman’s, attempting to find any traces of the song.

 

Her stomach clenched; in the very back of Donna’s mind she found what she was looking for—a sickly, sour yellow web of the song, holding back—oh, gods—it was holding back so much. All that was, all that is, all that ever could be. Donna could have been so much and it was all held back by a sour yellow song in her head that she couldn’t even hear.

 

“S’wrong,” Rose muttered, not really aware that she was speaking aloud. “Need River, need Jack—god, I might even need the TARDIS to sort this out.”

 

“Sorry, what?” Donna said, her head snapping up, and for a second, Rose could have sworn she saw recognition in them.

 

“Sorry, just—you’re hired, of course, if you want the job,” Rose said, brushing away the traces of the web. “You’ll have to meet River and Jack—they’ll give the final okay, but I know they will. I was just—remembering a project that I need to consult with both of them on.”

 

“Don’t think you can fool me with that, Blondie,” Donna said, rolling her eyes. “Been lied to by better than you, haven’t I?” Rose looked at Donna carefully, making sure that the other woman understood what she was saying, but the redhead continued on blithely unaware. “Talk for days, that one could, never saying anything at all. God, you’re just like him. By all means, I’ll come to work here. Better than temping, anyway, even if it is in bloody _Cardiff_.”

 

And Rose understood; Donna’s disdain for Cardiff was _his_ disdain for Cardiff, leaking through, spilling over. The web, the wrongness of it—without the TARDIS, without the Doctor, the web was weakening, and bits were leaking through. If she didn’t find a way to shore it up, or better, find a way to let the Doctor-Donna exist in full, Donna would burn long before the Doctor returned in 2010.

 

As she bustled Donna out, giving her a start date for her new job, offering her a place in their rapidly-filling flat (really, they were going to have to get a proper mortgage on a proper house soon, the lot of them, and part of her simply rebelled at that thought, or they were going to have to split up, and she didn’t know if she could bear that either), she ran different scenarios over in her head of how she could possibly save Donna with only herself, River Song, and Jack Harkness at her disposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, beta'd by the incomparable Nyruserra, who has been pulled into the fandom. She's very pleased to actually get about 30% of what's going on in the story now (give her time, she just finished S2).
> 
> Also, please do not be coming after me with torches and pitchforks.


	5. Interludes: The Torchwood Team

Chapter 5.

Interludes: The Torchwood Team

 

In the end, the Donna issue had been solved quite easily, once River had reappeared. She was spending more time on missions and back in her own time now that Rose was gaining control over her abilities. Guiding Rose through using her own powers, she allowed the younger woman to pull on her and Jack through their links to her and the TARDIS to repair the rapidly decaying web the Doctor had built in Donna’s mind to hold the Time Lord consciousness her human brain couldn’t contain. Rose wouldn’t let another metacrisis die in her arms; she let the Bad Wolf out to play, and the Goddess was only too happy to repair the damage her Doctor had caused in his self-sacrifice.

 

Rewriting human biology to suit her needs was nothing new for the Bad Wolf, of course; she’d already done it at least twice that they knew of, possibly a third time – there was no sure way to know if Bad Wolf had a hand in River’s birth with the woman spouting “Spoilers” more frequently than before. In place of the sickly yellow web holding the consciousness in the back of Donna’s head, there were now glimmering, golden strands of the song written across her mind, and Rose knew if she looked carefully they would spell the words she’d come to associate with the other half of herself.

 

After Donna had wound down from her rant about slapping the Doctor into his next regeneration, something River had said she’d dearly love to see, and Rose had recovered enough to talk, River smiled, and looked at Rose.

 

“How did I do that,” she asked, now that the immediacy of the moment had passed. In truth, when Donna had started to shake just like her own metacrisis had, she hadn’t thought, just followed River’s directions until Bad Wolf had taken over.

 

River smirked. “How do you know what colour the song should be?”

 

Rose stared at her; the question was so obvious as to seem stupid, at first glance, really. She remembered the beautiful gold surrounding her, saw it in her mind every time she heard it properly, and she just - felt it when it was right. The sour yellow that came from the world now, the sour yellow that made up the web in Donna’s mind - that was obviously wrong because she saw the proper gold all the time...oh. Oh! She grinned.

 

“Exactly,” River said, watching her face. “The ‘sour yellow’ you’re always talking about is so obvious to you because the gold you know it should be is there, in your head, all the time. You sense the wrongness of what you see everywhere else because you carry the song in its proper form with you - you carry the Heart of the TARDIS with you, Rose.”

 

Rose, despite her pleasure at finally understanding, wanted to slap the other woman, best friend or not. It had been River’s presence that had set Donna off, after all. Apparently, seeing, in the flesh, a woman you knew was dead, tended to have that effect on people. Funny how, after all this time, River hadn’t mentioned that Donna had been there when she’d died.

 

Speaking of…

 

“When he said he saved you, I didn’t think he quite meant like this,” Donna said, one hand on her generous hip, the other gesturing to encompass River’s entire body, from the very tip of her impossibly wild hair to the practical boots on her feet. River laughed. Jack swallowed – audibly. Rose rolled her eyes.

 

“Don’t be daft,” River said, tossing her curls. “The Doctor attempted to save me. My husband saved me.”

 

Donna frowned, eyes lighting on Rose, and then turning between the two of them as though finally realising the implications of the entire situation before lighting on Jack in delight. “Wait. Everyone just – _wait_!” Donna was fabulous with social situations, taking charge and taking names, but even this might be beyond her. After a few moments’ pause her clever mind worked out all the gaps. “Okay, so – River, you’re meant to be the Doctor’s wife, but you’re saying that he’s not the one that saved you, and Rose, you don’t look at all horrified at the idea of her as his wife, which means she’s not, in fact, his wife, but something else, entirely – is she your daughter?”

 

River and Rose looked at one another. “You know, River, I hadn’t actually considered that would be the secret you were keeping from me,” Rose said, looking at the older woman appraisingly. “It would make sense. If you were raised apart from us, brought up to believe your father was your husband, only to discover that instead, he was your father – and you were the daughter of the last Time Lord and a goddess of time – I could see how that would be one hell of a spoiler.”

 

River was doubled over with laughter. “Oh, gods, I haven’t laughed like this in ages,” she gasped out. “Not since the time I had to tell my father who I married, and let me tell you, he hates my husband like you couldn’t believe. He loves the Doctor, don’t get me wrong, but he wouldn’t have been happy about that marriage, either, not really, and my husband is ten times the flirt the Doctor is.”

 

The idea that had been flitting through Rose’s mind about River’s husband cemented itself; there was only one man she knew that flirted more than the Doctor, after all. Jack’s eyes lit up. “Care to introduce me, River?” he suggested, winking broadly.

 

River fell over. “Jack, I promise, it would be a fantasy come to life for you, but not one worth ripping the Universe to shreds for,” she finally managed.

 

“Hey!” Jack shouted, offended.

 

“I’m guessing that I’m wrong?” Donna said, drawing their attention back to her.

 

“My parents are normal humans, for whatever it’s worth,” River said, getting herself under control. “For everything else I can only say ‘spoilers’ and that when the time comes, you’ll know everything. And that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

The pain in her eyes was real, and deep, and Rose reached out to put her hand on the other woman’s, watching as Donna did the same, recognising both the phrase and the hurt. “So am I,” Rose said, while Donna echoed it. Jack just looked between the three of them as though they were all mad.

 

Once Donna’s inclusion into the team was complete, Jack received the official sanction from UNIT to form his special ops team, code named Torchwood, based in Cardiff, and they began their work on the rift station.

 

2006 (The Balance)

Margaret the Slitheen’s advert had been the attraction for the Sycorax, as it turned out, not the Doctor’s regeneration, and thankfully, in their initial planning stages, Rose, Jack, and River had worked several contingency plans. Of course, none of them had come close to being what actually _had_ happened.

 

They’d accompanied Harriet Jones into the belly of the beast, the Sycorax ship itself, and she’d watched, horrified, as Jack had tried, as usual, to flirt his way out of danger. The leader of the invasion force had taken offense - it wouldn’t be the first time Jack hit on the wrong person, and it wasn’t even the first time she’d seen someone get offended at the way Jack seem to be permanently switched on. But it was the first time she’d seen him ‘die’. The Sycorax leader had hit him with a whip-like thing, and suddenly there was no more Captain Jack Harkness, just a pile of steaming bones and the horrible, vomit-inducing smell of burnt flesh on the air.

 

And she had stood up to take his place, arguing for the freedom of humanity from the control of the Sycorax, as she had before - until the pile of bones had started to grow flesh. The Sycorax leader had been terrified of the ‘witchcraft’, as he called it, but he stepped aside in fear or fascination until the bones had been completely covered, and Jack had been lying on the ground, whole and nude. He’d let out a tiny gasp, as though filling his lungs for the first time, and then had the audacity to sit up and look her in the eye and wink.

  
He’d battled for the planet and won - naked. And prim, proper Harriet Jones had been so pleased to see the alien craft speeding away that she’d hugged him while his bits and bobs were still swinging in the air. Rose had tried, and failed, to keep her laughter to herself.

 

2007 (Gwen, Jackie)

Jack had wanted to recruit Gwen when he’d gotten Ianto to join them, but while River was away more, in her own time with her husband, whose identity she was still keeping to herself, despite Jack’s pleas for an introduction and Rose’s suspicions, she had been adamant that the timeline be preserved as much as possible, meaning Gwen had to join Torchwood as closely to the way she had in the original timeline as she had.

 

And so, against his own wishes, Jack had allowed them all contact with Suzie, despite the skin-crawling feeling she gave the three Human-Plus beings at the Hub, and Mickey’s general suspicions of the woman from their reactions to her presence. Suzie’s presence, and work with the Gauntlet, however, were a minor set-back, when compared to the looming threat of Canary Wharf, despite all of their planning and assurances towards one another that it couldn’t possibly take place; no matter how many times they investigated the tower, they were still wary as the date approached, and Rose couldn’t help but feel the timelines tighten around her with all the inevitability of a fixed point, something she shared with River, Jack, and Donna, all three of whom helped, as much as they were able, looking with her down every possible timestream, and coming up as blocked as she was.

 

“It’s Bad Wolf,” Rose would mutter, every time. “Something’s coming, something we can’t fix, or prevent. She won’t let us see it.”

 

“If there is, Rose,” River said, rubbing soothing circles on the blonde’s back as Rose leaned into her for comfort, trying in vain to remember a time when she had considered this woman a rival, “then it’s because it is something that has to happen, whether we wish it to be or not.”

 

“I know,” she whispered, around the lump in her throat, looking around the room at the people she cared about most, save for her mother and the Doctor, both of whom were missing – her Mum still in London, living her life day after day on the Estate, ignorant of the life Rose led and completely happy to have it that way, the Doctor trapped out of existence, perhaps forever, erased from memory.

 

“If it’s one of us that has to go, babe, we won’t go down without a fight,” Mickey said, and Rose marveled at him, remembering the barely out of his teens boy, clinging to her legs, calling the Doctor a ‘thing’, cowering in fear, who could now face his own death head on, with bravery and determination. Her own fear turned to fierce pride. “Mickey Smith, you are a star.” He grinned, and she wondered if it was only that he’d needed to hear things like that, encouragement and belief in his abilities, of the kind River had been subtly giving him since the day he’d walked into UNIT headquarters, to turn him from cowering boy to brave man.

 

“I’ll admit,” River said, with a small toss of her curls, “that I’d always heard of the great Defender of Earth, Mickey Smith, and didn’t know how the young man I met last year had become such a legendary warrior, but you’ve certainly proved yourself worthy of the title.” She inclined her head slightly at him in a show of respect, and Mickey’s face flushed.

 

“They’re right,” Jack agreed. “You’re not so bad, Mickey Mouse. No one I’d rather have by my side in a fight. If it’s ever my time to go, give me you and the Three Fates over there,” he added, rolling his eyes at the nickname the women had gotten for their peculiar ability for speaking as one when a particular timeline stood out with all the power of a destined path, “and I’d choose us over any big baddie any day of the week and twice on Sundays.”

 

The morning of the Battle of Canary Wharf dawned clear and bright, and the timelines were pulled so taut around her stomach that Rose’s tea was roiling even before the phone rang. Jack hadn’t wanted to send anyone out, just in case, and every member of the team that was aware of the significance of the date jumped out of their skin as her phone merrily tinkled an Ian Drury song through the echoing stillness of the Hub.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Miss Tyler?” The voice was older, male, and more than a little brusque.

 

“This is Rose Tyler,” she said, and her voice was shaking at the very official sound of the man’s voice.

 

“My name is Doctor Stoker, at the Royal Hope Hospital’s A&E. I’m calling to alert you that we’ve admitted one Jacqueline Tyler, who has you listed as her next of kin,” he began in his crisp, efficient, utterly detached tone, and whatever he said next was completely drowned out by the pounding in her ears.

 

Jack plucked the phone from her limp fingers and started speaking into it, his lips moving, though Rose didn’t know what he was saying. River was beside her, wrapping an arm around her, with Jack handing her back her phone and taking Mickey before the bright light popped them all into an alley a block away from the hospital and Rose could hear.

 

“Mum, Mickey,” she managed through the tears and the large knot that seemed to have taken residence in her chest, so large it was blocking her stomach and her throat. “It was Mum the whole time.”

 

“I know, babe,” he said, pulling her into a hug, alternately patting her back and rubbing her shoulders. “It’s gonna be alright.”

 

“I told the Doctor we were family friends and lived a few blocks away,” Jack said. “You and Micks go in, River and I will do a sweep for any interference before joining you. Donna’s manning the Hub for the rest of the day and for as long as we need.”

 

All around her, she could feel the timelines tightening, and she realised how utterly, completely stupid she’d been, that they’d all been. Mickey had left this world and come back, had a life with Martha, Martha who might even now be at the hospital with her mother. Rose had been gone so much in the years leading up to Canary Wharf that no one had really noticed that much that she’d vanished for good. She and Mickey were both just “missing, presumed dead” after that incident. But Jackie Tyler - Jackie who had never, ever left her flat for more than a few hours, and that was to go to the market, to go to the pub, to go to the shops, and every few years, to take a short trip that everyone on the Estate knew about - Jackie Tyler hadn’t just been ‘presumed’ dead. Jackie had been officially declared dead when she hadn’t come home the next day, because everyone knew that Jackie’s daughter was ‘travelling’ and that Mickey Smith had joined Rose ages ago, but Jackie - Jackie wouldn’t have left the Estate for anything. It was safe there. After what had happened to her Pete, Jackie Tyler had needed that bit of safe in her life.

 

And the timelines tightening around her, she knew River must have felt them, too - they had all the inevitability of a fixed point. Her mother was dying in that London hospital. This stupid, fucking timeline the Doctor had decided to write in place of the one he’d had was taking her mother from her and forget slapping that alien into his next regeneration, she was going to turn him into a fixed point in time so she could have the satisfaction of killing him again and again and again for doing this to her.

 

Later - later she would barely remember forcing her way through the hospital to her mother’s bedside, the machines that were bleeping rhythmically monitoring what was left of the once-vibrant Jacqueline Tyler. She wouldn’t remember all the details of how she came to be holding a hand that seemed to so frail, as though Jackie was already slipping away from her, and she wouldn’t remember exactly what the doctors were saying to her as they explained the accident that had put her in the hospital bed. She would remember that Jackie’s eyes had never opened as she’d slipped quietly from life between one breath and the next as the timeline tightened enough around the moment as to strangle the breath from her throat. She’d remember that River and Jack and Micks were there with her, each of them lending her their silent support and their tears for the woman who had raised her, who had been both mother and father to her in two lifetimes, the woman who had been the only mother a daft alien had known since the Time War, and would now never see in life again, and who had loved Rose so very fiercely that she had followed her across dimensions, leaving her infant son at home to protect her grown daughter.

 

It had been a relief to throw herself into work after the wake. To let Jack handle the packing of the flat. To welcome Gwen to the team, to help Jack take out Suzie. To let River hold her when the tears finally came and finally admit what she’d been putting off since she realised what the Doctor’s inevitable return would mean: that her mother, too, would remember, and remembering, would be trapped, just as surely as Rose herself had been trapped in that parallel. Jackie Tyler would have been trapped in her old life, a life without Pete Tyler, without Tony Tyler, a life in a Council Estate flat, after having been the wife of a millionaire, a life of a widow, after having had a second chance at a family – with no chance to return, with no Rose at home to help ease her loneliness. When Rose finally admitted to herself that longing for the Doctor’s return would have been subjecting her own mother to the worst sort of hell on Earth and the height of selfishness, and that her mother would have hated not being able to return to her life with Pete and Tony, she could almost – _almost_ – be happy that her mother had been spared that, if there was no way to return her to them.

 

2008 (Martha, Sarah Jane)

As Rose slowly recovered from her mother’s death, with the help of her team, Torchwood got a call from an old friend of Rose’s whose face she knew, even if the older woman didn’t know her. Knowing she couldn’t go herself, Rose sent Donna and Jack to help Sarah Jane deal with the Bane, laughing hysterically when they came back from their adventures. Even without her memories of the Doctor, the woman was still a valuable asset and a born investigator. Rose utterly adored her, and only wished she’d been able to see her again. Perhaps after it was all over they could have tea.

 

But as the time was drawing nearer for the Judoon to send the Royal Hope to the moon, Donna started plotting. She was adamant that neither she, Jack, Rose, or River (who was spending less and less time with them, saying that Jack and Donna were enough connection to the TARDIS to keep Rose’s connection under control for the moment), be the ones to go.

 

“The Judoon had scanners, yeah?” she said, rapidly. As the Time Lord consciousness became more ingrained in her personality, she spoke faster, used more technical terms, but in a more down-to-earth, easier-to-relate-to manner than the Doctor ever had. The Doctor-Donna was one of Rose’s favourite people in the world. “Non-human and they’d execute first and not bother with the questions. Not big on questions, the Judoon. Judoon platoon on the moon. Anyway, can’t be us. They’d take one scan and execute. And while that might be okay for Jack, not sure if me and Rose can regenerate yet. Can’t take the risk. Mickey ought to go. He can take the sonic, disable the MRI as soon as he gets in, we know which one she is, take her prisoner under official UNIT designation – maybe Jack should go, too, just in case, yeah?”

 

Mickey had been trying to follow her train of thought while the others had just allowed her to think aloud until she wound down and he was now looking confused. “I’m sorry, what?”

 

“You and Jack, go in, take the plasmavore prisoner while she’s receiving treatment. Official UNIT prisoner, while she’s masquerading as human. Your credentials will get you recognised as officials under the Shadow Proclamation. Take Martha with you when you arrest her – she’s clever. And she’s an official of the hospital. It’ll help with the Judoon.”

 

Rose laughed when the plan had gone down much more along the lines, from their verbal reports, anyway, of the plasmavore draining Jack, leading Martha and Mickey on a merry chase through the hospital with the Judoon in hot pursuit, only to end up in front of the MRI which the plasmavore was attempting to do something to when Mickey remembered the sonic, jammed it at the machine, which fried the circuits, the Judoon caught them, took the plasmavore, Mickey passed out from oxygen deprivation, and Martha had to use CPR on him which she was still doing when the Judoon returned the hospital and Jack found them, making Martha scream and demand to know just what the bloody hell kind of people were they, anyway?

 

And it had all ended with Martha being a medic at the Torchwood hub, snuggled up under Mickey’s arm in the conference room during the team’s Friday film night for the most recent Harry Potter film. She looked around the room at what was supposed to be Jack’s team but had somehow become her team and realised she needed to take a few hundred steps back if she was supposed to walk away from this in a few years.

 

2009 (Sontarans and The 456)

There were things River Song couldn’t do. She couldn’t tell her friends that the future she came from, one where she was over five hundred years old, was not the same timeline they were living now. She couldn’t tell them how this all turned out, because things were already changing in her timeline. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Rose and Jack that time was in flux. She wasn’t meant to be here, spending so much time with these versions of them. Oh, but she longed for this time with them. They were so young, even Jack, with centuries to his name was young compared to the man she knew in her time. And Mickey, of course, was long dead - Mickey whom she’d barely gotten to know before his death, given that she’d spent most of his life in Stormcage, living her life in reverse of his. She had enjoyed getting to know Martha, as well, for much like Mickey; she was long gone in her timeline.

 

But most of all, she was enjoying this time with Rose Tyler. There were things she couldn’t even tell Jack, and one of the most painful was that she’d never met Rose Tyler. Everything she knew about her came from books, or from a future version of him. Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, was someone a post-Library River had looked up to, a River who had come to terms with who she was to the Doctor. Oh, she knew that her Doctor had loved her - he loved all his companions. He’d just never loved her the way she had wanted him to. When Jack had told her about Rose Tyler, and what she’d done, she’d understood, then, why he hadn’t - he couldn’t. It hadn’t been possible for him to.

 

And she’d wondered, then, what had become of Rose Tyler, when the Universe had rebooted. That was something else she could never tell them. Because he had never, ever gone back for her. And it wasn’t like Bad Wolf hadn’t tried to steer him to her - she had. He’d just run.

 

No, River Song would not mourn the loss of the timeline she was living in, if she could only manage to rewrite it with something better. Her pre-Library self would hate it, she was sure. Oh, she wished she could see her younger self’s expression on Demon’s Run when she first came face to face with Rose Tyler. That was going to be something utterly painful, but necessary, and it would give younger River exactly what she needed to realise that while she would always matter to the Doctor, it would never be what she wanted it to be - that the wedding under duress was not real, and that she would never, ever truly be the Doctor’s wife.

 

After her talk with River, Rose found that while it was not exactly comforting to realise that her mother would have been miserable had she lived, it certainly made living with her death easier. She wasn’t sure what sort of person that made her. She, River, Jack, and Donna (who had luckily been there for the entire event), threw themselves wholeheartedly into putting a stop to the entire ATMOS debacle before it even had a chance to start. Martha had been around for that, as well, working for UNIT, but without her memories, she was not as helpful. She and Mickey, with Owen and Gwen, handled the vast majority of the fieldwork, while the four ‘impossible things’ focused on the last two major events that were coming to a head before the Doctor’s return.

 

In the end, though, it was Donna’s solution, one so simple that they hadn’t even considered it, that won the day.

 

“You’ve said it hundreds of thousands of times, the lot of you,” she reminded them. “Our job isn’t just to stop the Earth from being destroyed, or overrun, or what have you - it’s to preserve the timeline - to keep things as close to the original timeline as possible. What did the Doctor tell you, Rose? An ordinary man, alive in the world that shouldn’t be…”

 

“Oh,” Rose said, understanding dawning. “We can’t save them. We’ve been trying to think of how to completely avert ATMOS, but Donna’s right. We can’t. Those people that died - those 52 simultaneous deaths that were directly related to ATMOS - those have to happen. We can’t save them.” She closed her eyes, reaching for both Donna and River unconsciously, picking through the timelines.

 

“You’re looking for Luke?” Donna asked.

 

“We can’t save him, either,” Rose said, shaking her head as she opened her eyes. “It’s fixed. The whole event is fixed. It has to play out exactly as it did when the Doctor was here. Donna, I think it’s best if you go with Martha for this one. You were there the first time, and you can take Jack - if worst comes to worst, Jack can be your backup - but it’s fixed. We can’t stop it. Little things - those might change. But the major events are fixed. The Sontarans will attempt to invade. If we try to stop it, we risk Reapers, or worse.”

 

Jack swallowed, hard, and looked at Rose with pleading in his eyes. “Rosie, what about the 456?”

 

She closed her eyes again, picking apart timelines, reaching across Jack’s impossibly long one for the event she was looking for, wincing as she came across Tosh and Owen’s deaths - so very, very soon now - and there it was.

 

“With the frequency, we’ll be able to stop them, but not until the first demand has been made and the first offering refused,” she said, and she knew her voice had taken on the layered quality that indicated the Bad Wolf was speaking through her, with Donna and River joining in - the words had the finality of prophecy. “A sacrifice will still be required, but there will be one who is willing, the one with the mind of a child who is not a child, the one who has seen too much and does not want to see it again. The willing sacrifice can be made after the first offering is refused.”

 

She dropped Donna and River’s hands, shaking her head, trying to loosen the hold of the Bad Wolf.

 

“Don’t suppose you know what that meant, yeah?” she asked.

 

“I’m not sure,” Jack said slowly. “I think I might have an idea, though. When the 456 came the first time, one of the children got away. He ran. And when they came back, when the children of Earth started speaking in unison, he spoke with them. He was terrified of them, but he hated them, too. I don’t know - if he thought he was giving his life to kill them, he might just be a ‘willing sacrifice’ against them. But - I can’t be involved. He’ll remember me.”

 

In the end, he had, of course, remembered Jack. UNIT had handled the 456 exactly the same as the non-existent Torchwood had, but UNIT had developed differently than they had in the original timeline without the Doctor to guide them towards science and away from the military. But it had worked, and Clem had only been too happy to let it all end with him as the one who had taken them out, those hateful bastards who had taken his life from him in so many ways.

 

And when it was over, and the damage cleaned up, as much as sacrificing anyone for the safety of the rest of the world can ever be ‘cleaned up’, at any rate, all that was left to do was wait. It was almost time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I didn't like what I had written, and it took me forever to move past the block. Ny has the next chapter, and the two after it are ready to be sent to her whenever she has time to go over them.


	6. Interludes With the Doctor

**Interludes With the Doctor**

**Day 1**

The Doctor had never been particularly good at staying still. When he crossed through the crack and found himself in the console room of the TARDIS,  _again_ , he realised the fatal flaw with his brilliant plan to make Amelia Pond remember him. He'd passed through that crack in 1996, whispered in the ear of the sleeping child a story about an ancient, blue box that he'd 'borrowed', and it would take - oh, roughly fourteen years of linear time for her to recall that. Provided that time moved the same on this side of the crack as it did on the other (and not, Rassilon forbid,  _slower_ ), he was in for a very, very boring decade and a half.

He'd lied, of course - he always lied in this body. He didn't hate repeats so much as he didn't actually know what would have happened had he tried to step back any further into his personal timeline. The cracks hadn't appeared - or at least he hadn't noticed them - until he'd regenerated. Because really, if he'd had the chance, he would have gone back, just a bit further, not too far, of course - there were some things he never, ever wanted to see again, but that last moment he'd seen her, that bright, shining New Year's - that he would have loved to have seen.

Ah, Rose Tyler. He shook his head at his own stupidity. He was an anomaly among his own kind, even when there had been others of his kind around, leading with his heart instead of his head, but something about that tiny pink and yellow human who was just so much  _bigger_  on the inside made him even worse than usual.

His last body had been born with her taste on his lips, full of love for her in his hearts, the scent of her, drenched in the Vortex, surrounding him. His last body had been created completely for her. And this one. He looked down, slumped into a seat in the console room as the TARDIS hummed in his mind. Ah, this body had been born missing her, hearts broken over her loss, her scent nothing but a distant memory that had faded with the thing he'd grown to hate - time. This body had been born in bitterness and so very much rage. If the metacrisis he'd left her with had been born of blood and battle, and had needed her to make him better, just as his Ninth self had, then what of his current self? How much more did this self need her - Rose Tyler, who didn't need to tell him to stop, because as long as her fingers were laced between his, tighter than a corset's strings, there was no need for the rage of the Oncoming Storm. Oh, yes, this self needed her more than his clone ever had, and he wondered, if he'd known that he'd become this -  _thing_  - without her, always just a hairsbreadth away from the Time Lord Victorious, would he still have left her there?

Amelia was a wonderful friend, and an excellent companion; she reminded him of Donna in so many ways, and not just because of that wonderful ginger hair he envied so much, but she just wasn't Rose.

A light flickered in a hallway, and he knew his TARDIS was telling him it was time for sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he'd indulged, and for once he'd give anything for nightmares of the War - anything but dreams of white walls he couldn't breach, of beaches he'd never see again, and wide smiles with just a hint of a little pink tongue peeking through that he'd never imagined he'd still be missing. Blimey, regeneration was supposed to stop this sort of madness, and he knew he'd put it off for too long, that it had gone a bit wrong, but it should have dulled this ache.

The lights flickered more insistently, and he stroked the console with affection. His ship knew what was best, and he even agreed with the old girl. He needed sleep. As he traversed the halls, following the flickering lights, he wasn't surprised to see the cherry wood door with the circular writing he'd never translated, no matter how many times she'd asked, in front of him. How could he tell her that the TARDIS, cheeky thing that she was, had entwined their names together in his language, and put it on her door - and had apparently done so the first night she'd slept there, though he hadn't found out for at least three weeks, after that nightmare with the Dalek in Utah, and hadn't known what to say?

He traced the writing with his finger, her name a whispered prayer as he opened the door. He didn't need a psychologist to tell him how unhealthy it was to keep this room as some sort of shrine to her. It wasn't tidy, and he hadn't made an effort to clean it, preferring to leave it as nearly like she'd left it as he could. Her scent had faded from the pillows years ago, even for his superior senses, and he missed it more than words could say. There was no language, not even his own, that had words for how much he missed Rose Tyler.

His old Converse were on the floor next to a pair of her trainers, the 'raggedy' suit crumpled on the floor next to a pink jumper that still had a few stray blonde hairs stuck to it. If he looked carefully, there were probably a few stuck to the suit, as well. Sometimes, when he managed to sleep in here, he'd find them stuck to his tweed, too. He always carefully removed them and wound them around the bristles of the brush that lay angled on the counter in her bathroom, completely reluctant to lose even a single one, but knowing that there was no way he could walk around the TARDIS with long, straight blonde hairs on his suit without Amy's eagle-eye picking up on them, sparking a conversation he never, ever wanted to have with the ginger.

He tugged off the tweed jacket and bowtie, running his hands through the overlong hair and wondering if it would ever do the gravity-defying things his last body's hair had done before deciding it didn't matter, since Rose would never see it anyway. He toed off the boots and settled into 'his' side of her bed - he'd never had one while she actually slept in it, had never allowed himself the luxury of actually sharing a bed with her, though he'd sometimes check on her while she slept. But it seemed like sacrilege to sleep in the rumpled spot where her body had lain, the covers still thrown back from where she'd pushed them off her body that morning to visit her mother - he couldn't do it. It would be like desecrating a goddess' altar.

Instead he curled himself around the covers, trying to disturb them as little as possible, so that they were exactly as she'd left them when she'd been there last, leaning his head into her pillow in the hopes that he could catch even a faint hint of Rose in them, but of course, it was long gone. He blinked rapidly and allowed his eyes to drift close, just breathing in the calm that seemed to wash over him whenever he managed to bring himself to breach this sacred space. He'd rarely set foot in here while she was still aboard the TARDIS, forcing an invisible line, despite all the others he'd crossed with her, between what he absolutely could not do with her, regardless of how much he wanted to.

As he drifted off to sleep, not for the first time, he wondered why he had been so stubborn. He'd always known he would lose her; he always lost them, in some way or another. Would it have been better to have lost her, having truly had everything they could have had together, than to have lost her like this, with this burning, aching regret that was overpowering him, torturing him, killing him slowly from the inside out?

He'd never know, and the answer was driving him mad.

**Day 1156**

He was pretty sure that this was what going mad felt like. He was laying on her bed - he hadn't really moved from her bed much in the past - oh, three years or so - eating a jar of jam, with his sock-clad feet propped up on the wall and crossed at the ankles and his head hanging off the bed, looking around the room upside down. It made eating jam a bit of a challenge, really, but after three years with absolutely nothing to do on the TARDIS except amuse himself, challenging himself by eating jam upside down was a good day for him.

At least it was better than the day he'd decided to go skinny dipping in that pool he'd forgotten he'd made into a habitat for the Palavian drakefish. They'd been a bit too interested in his - er - bait and tackle. He'd run out of the pool as fast as his gangly legs could carry him with his hands covering his bits in a manner completely unbecoming a Time Lord.

Jam jar finished, he stretched his hands awkwardly over his head to put it on the floor, making a mental note to clean up the small collection he had forming down there, and looked up at his feet, which were twitching - rather human habit, that - in boredom. Really, he hadn't noticed it before, but how long had he been wearing mismatched socks, anyway? One was long, stretching high enough that he couldn't see its top, and striped horizontally, in various shades of blue. The other - well, how in Rassilon's name had he never noticed it!? It only came to his ankle, after all, and was white, with - oh. Oh, of course. Of course it would have little pink flowers. Its mate was probably floating around the room somewhere. Or lost to Jackie Tyler's flat. A sock without a mate.

That was a fine metaphor for him.

Right, then, he was getting ridiculous. He'd spent three years wallowing in Rose Tyler's bedroom, and if there had ever been any trace of her scent left in it, it was now thoroughly overtaken by his. This was utter rubbish. He needed a shower, and then he'd spend at least a week picking clothes for Amy's wedding. And then after that, he'd tinker around in the console room for a good four years, napping in his hammock when he needed to sleep. And he would absolutely, positively not be going back into Rose Tyler's room ever again.

Unless he had a really bad day.

Or he needed to - snuggle her pillow or something of hers or something ridiculously human like that.

But that was it.

Those were the only reasons he'd go into Rose Tyler's room. He wouldn't live in there anymore.

Unless River was on board. Since she seemed to think she lived in his room. Then he'd live in Rose's. Because River never could seem to find Rose's room. Then he'd live in Rose's.

But that was it.

Really. Only then.

 _Really_.

**Day 2039**

It had been roughly five years, Earth time, since he'd stepped through the crack in Amelia Pond's wall, and he was fairly proud of himself for how well he was holding up. He wasn't one for sitting still, and being confined to his TARDIS, which was shrinking at an alarming rate to conserve the energy needed to sustain herself, was definitely not high on his list of favourite things.  _Oh, bugger_. Now he'd have that sodding song stuck in his head for the next three years. The last three had been spent stopping himself from singing and dancing the bloody Macarena. The two before that had been the Cupid Shuffle. At least this one didn't have a dance - there was some small comfort in this wretched, wretched existence of his, especially since he'd sworn to himself he would stop living in Rose Tyler's bedroom.

He'd mostly kept that promise, too. Mostly. He only slept in there once every two or three months, and it still looked roughly the same as it had when he'd first been confined to the ship, though sometime in the first year, he'd given in and comforted himself by snuggling into the rumpled bedding she'd left, burrowing into the place where she'd once slept, waking to find himself absolutely covered in long strands of blonde hair that he'd had to meticulously remove and wind into her hairbrush.

Now he spent most of his time curled up in the Library, where he was currently rereading the entire Harry Potter series for what was probably the twelfth time. He'd started reading it aloud after the second read through, in as close to his first incarnation's voice as he could, and he was currently doing a fair imitation of his last body's voice, if he said so himself - and since he was alone on the ship, there really wasn't anyone there to contradict him, though the hum in the back of his mind told him differently.

The last read through had been a particularly poor (if the noises the TARDIS had made that had sounded suspiciously like the old girl had been giggling at him were anything to go by) imitation of Rose. He was thinking of trying for Amy's voice next. Then he could pretend he was both ginger and Scottish, which would be a fun lark for him.

Oh, yes, he decided, he was most certainly going mad - perhaps he was already there. Still, as he settled more comfortably into the sofa with the quilt from Jackie Tyler's flat that Rose had insisted on bringing with her to remind her of home draped across his legs, there were worse places to go mad. He still had tea, thankfully - he wasn't exactly sure how the TARDIS was rationing his supplies, and he was a bit worried, truthfully, that he'd run out of the important things, like jam, tea, and fish fingers and custard, before his time was up, but he trusted the old girl.

He kept reading though, idly wondering just how many times he could read these books before he'd grow entirely bored of them. Well, now,  _there_  was a challenge!

**Day 2739**

Seven years. He was halfway through his sentence of incarceration on the TARDIS, and now he was entirely sure he was mad. The proof of that was staring him in the mirror. Hated mirrors, him, had for quite awhile. Hadn't even bothered to look at his ninth body until that day in Rose's flat - he'd been curious to see what she saw, what about him could possibly interest such a pretty little human girl. He knew he'd been quite handsome in some of his other incarnations, and he assumed, that since she was looking at him like he was the most utterly fascinating thing she'd ever seen that he must have been quite, quite pretty. Even Jackie had tried to come onto him, he remembered with a smile - of course, that was before he'd known that Jackie Tyler would fancy anything with two legs and – well, yes, better not to finish that.

Until then, though, he hadn't wanted to know what he'd looked like, because it hadn't mattered. He wasn't even sure he wanted to be the Doctor anymore - certainly hadn't felt like it. And there he was, big ears, big nose, daft old face - and that pretty, young little ray of human sunshine gleaming up at him like he'd put all the stars in the sky just for her. He'd felt like a kid, just out of the Academy again with that smile. But he still hated the mirror - he still hated looking at himself, and remembering what he was, who he was, what he'd done.

And now, he was grinning at himself like a fool, standing in front of a mirror. Granted, that wasn't the only proof that he'd gone mad; the rest of the proof was also staring at him in that mirror.

There was one of the cravats he'd loved so much in his eighth body, hiding under that cream jumper from his fifth, the trousers from his first (he couldn't believe they still existed, frankly), the leather jacket from his ninth (and why had he ever given that up, it was simply fantastic, as that body had liked to say), the scarf from his fourth, and a really rather nice cane from his seventh. Under it all was the shirt he liked best in his last body, and his favorite pair of suspenders from this one. All in all, it was a rather ridiculous picture, especially as he'd done his best to give his hair the gravity-defying heights his last body had, but all he'd done was achieve something that looked rather like a very poor mohawk on a 1980s punk-rocker. He spun 'round, wondering what else he could pull from the wardrobe to complete the look, but the humming sound that he was starting to associate with the TARDIS laughing at him was getting louder.

"Alright, alright," he muttered, slowly removing the layers and putting them away, fingering the soft leather jacket fondly. Rose had loved that jacket, and so had he. Maybe he should keep it out - just - put it in her room, or something. He nodded to himself, and pulled it off the hanger again, draping it over his arm. A piece of celery dropped at his feet, accompanied by a rather loud hum of amusement.

He glared up at the distant ceiling and kicked the offending vegetable away. "Very funny."

**Day 3530**

"NAAAAAAAAANTS INGOYAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The amused hum of the TARDIS was getting louder every year. As he belted out the opening lyrics of The Lion King, sitting in the darkened media room, sometime in his ninth year of waiting on Amelia Pond, he decided to ignore the ship and his own growing insanity.

He'd taken to hiding in the media room, because sometime in the past year, he started seeing  _her_ on the TARDIS. Oh, the first eight years were bad, there was no mistake about that, but hallucinations - that was a sign he'd definitely lost it. He'd been in the console room, fiddling with something, and she'd been there, not a day over nineteen, glowing slightly gold, just an image in the Time Rotor.

Oh, he'd shouted at the TARDIS then. He'd pulled out a mallet and started banging on everything in sight, but the ghostly, glowing image hadn't faded until he'd dropped the mallet in absolute despair and just  _stared_ at her. Her hair was braided back from her face, which still had the slight softness of youth and innocence to it, and she was chewing on her bottom lip. She'd turned, opened her eyes to speak to someone he couldn't see, and then a hand he didn't even realise had been missing - reaching out to the person she was talking to, maybe - had appeared, for a moment, before she'd vanished.

Four times more, he'd seen her, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, in the Time Rotor. She never spoke to him, never seemed to be aware of his presence. She was just there. Living her life, while he, silent spectator, drank in the sight of her.

That's when he vowed to stay out of the console room and started hiding in the media room, pulling down every single film he could think of, eventually working his way through the Disney films she'd loved so much, which he was now watching for at least the third time, singing along to the songs, quoting each line verbatim, which had always, always driven her 'round the bend. She'd always swat him when he'd do it, and - dammit, he'd come in her to avoid her, not to relive every single, sodding moment they'd ever spent together! He had the next five years to completely erase Rose Tyler from his hearts, and never mind what sort of man he'd be then! Maybe then he could look in a mirror and not care what he saw, because he wouldn't imagine her standing behind him, just over his shoulder, commenting on what he'd done in that voice of hers, proud of his accomplishments, of which there were so, so few, or more often than not in this body, her eyes sad and disapproving of his many, many mistakes.

**Day 4657**

He only had two years left now, which was a blessing, because the TARDIS had so little power left that she had only enough to sustain them for that long, perhaps a tiny bit longer, without jettisoning the last few rooms she refused to give up. He knew she was storing them in her memory banks, so they could be recalled, recreated, when the time came, but she was stubbornly refusing to delete the kitchen (for which he was grateful), the console room (also necessary), and Rose's bedroom (for which he was secretly grateful but would never admit).

Since he was limited on where he could live, he was back to wallowing in Rose's room, since it seemed like every time he stepped into the console room, he was bound to see her in the Time Rotor. It was almost like her image lived there, now. He didn't understand why the old girl was trying to drive him mad, but whenever he asked, she merely nudged him with soft, gentle hums and flashed the stupid, sodding, hated  _words_ across the screen, as though that should explain anything at all. If he never saw those words again, he'd be happy.

At the moment he was trying to categorize his former companions by Hogwarts House. After that, he was thinking of using Avatar: The Last Airbender bending styles or nationalities - he rather thought Amy, for example, would have made an excellent chi-blocker, like that Ty Lee girl, who wasn't actually a bender, though there were some fan theories that she had Airbender ancestry, so maybe...he went back to scratching notes on one of Rose's notebooks about Amy.

He was doing them in reverse order, and he'd started with Amy, though he was already thinking ahead towards Rory, because that was a Hufflepuff if he'd ever seen one - a Hufflepuff Earthbender. Steady, dependable, sturdy, and strong. Besides being a good way to keep from going mad (he was trying to at least pretend he hadn't already), it was really making him think about his companions in ways that he hadn't before. Really, what made them tick? What made them good companions? Why did he keep them around?

It was a good mental exercise, anyway, and it really did keep him from pulling his hair out by the roots (he'd already shaved his head four times and regrown his hair, not to mention let it grow past his shoulders and cut it, grown a beard to his collar and decided it was a terrible look for him -  _really_ , there was only so much he could do with his hair).

**Day 5193**

The TARDIS was humming in anticipation. He was wearing a suit that would have made his eighth self weep with envy and his ninth self cringe in horror. In fact, he was almost certain the TARDIS had tried to set it out for his ninth self when they'd taken Rose to Cardiff, but he'd stubbornly refused to change. Looking down at himself now, he wished he hadn't been so stubborn, because he was sure she would have loved it. He was absolutely, positively NOT looking at the Time Rotor, because of course she was there, glowing. Nor was he looking at the display monitors in the room, because every single one of them had the words - the stupid, bleeding words that he never, ever wanted to see again.

Hopefully, any minute, Amelia Pond would pull him out of this hell; he could crash her wedding, and then take her and Mr. Pond off for a nice adventure to make up for two thousand years of hell during the whole Pandorica incident.

Ah, there it was, echoing across time and space.

" _Raggedy man, I remember you, and_ _ **you are late for my wedding**_!" Ah, that was his Pond. He could feel the TARDIS being pulled through the dimensions, and wondered, briefly how Rose, beautiful, brave, amazing Rose Tyler who was even now fading from the Time Rotor as it began to move for the first time in almost fifteen years, had managed to hop across dimensions so easily when he was having such a difficult time of it. Pond's voice was getting clearer now, as she pulled them across, and the display was showing a lovely wedding reception hall. Well, it was as good a place as any for a landing, he supposed, but she needed to pull him just a bit more before he could bring the TARDIS fully over. " _I found you. I found you in words, like you knew I would. That's why you told me the story about the brand new, ancient blue box._ " And there it was.

The old girl was slow, sluggish after so long existing out of time, and he was curious how she'd managed it. He'd wondered, more than once, how she was pulling it off, because she shouldn't have had that kind of power. As Amy Pond continued speaking, however, he could feel his beautiful, sexy girl gaining in power as they were brought fully into their proper place, being written back into time.

_"Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, folks. The Doctor has FINALLY made his appearance. I will say that any errors in this are mine. I felt bad about the long delay in the last update, and decided to forego having this chapter beta-read in an attempt to bribe my beta, in comparable Nyruserra, to look at Chapter 7 tonight instead, because it needs far more work than this one did. I hope everyone enjoyed the Doctor's descent into madness as much as I enjoyed writing it. It really has to be my absolute favorite chapter in the story so far.


	7. Something Old, Something New

Of all the days for them to be stuck in traffic, of course this would be the day. The M4 was completely stopped, in both directions, and they were nowhere near an exit. She'd been trying, all day, to get a read on the timelines, but there were too many swirling around for her to grasp any one of them and say, with certainty, that it was the one that would be the likely outcome of their day. River had left them that morning, because she had her own role to play in bringing the Doctor back. She'd hugged Rose before leaving, whispering, "We all have our parts to play, sweetie. I'll be playing mine later, please remember that," before popping off, elegant black suit clinging to her mature curves.

Rose looked down at her own dress, scandalous in its length, black, with a bloused top and a tight skirt, and slashed sleeves from shoulder to wrist. It was starkly fashionable, and all she could see was how utterly thick her thighs looked from years of working with UNIT. The long chains that draped from her neck were River's choice (as was the dress), and not for the first time, Rose missed her standard 'uniform', the armour she'd adopted since they'd moved to Cardiff. Jack had his wool coat, suspenders, and blue shirts - the perfect image of a 1940s businessman - or conman, however you wanted to look at it. River, of course, was always perfect, though if Rose had ever seen the woman in the same thing twice, she'd be amazed. But looking impeccable and gorgeous was River's personal armour. Micks had his jeans and jumpers. Martha had her favourite little red leather jacket. Donna the Supertemp had her pinstriped women's pantsuits, which Rose found hilarious and heart-breaking at the same time. All she needed was the trench to look like she was dressing up as the Doctor whose mind she'd taken in, though Donna, at least, preferred sensible black working flats to Converse (though she did have several pair in her closet - said she couldn't resist them and didn't know what to do about it).

Rose, though, had her own special brand of armour; black boots, the one part of her UNIT-gear she'd been happy to keep, dark-washed denims, untucked pink blouses with wide black belts draped over them, and a black leather jacket that she'd searched high and low until she'd found one that was as close as she could find to her first Doctor's. It was a little longer, a little less worn, but it completed her look in much the way that the Doctor's had always finished his. And she would give anything to be wearing it now instead of the ridiculously skimpy bit of fabric River called a dress with the strappy heels adorned with fucking roses on the ankles. Oh, she was going to kill River for this - and Jack - and the Doctor.

"The wedding starts in five minutes," Jack muttered, as they moved forward about three meters.

"You keep talking about this wedding like missing it is going to be the end of the world," Martha said, holding hands with Mickey from the back of the SUV, and Donna, on Martha's other side, rolled her eyes a bit.

"Yeah, babe, we've been trying to tell you that you've forgotten, and that when you remember, you'll want to be at this wedding," Mickey reminded her.

"Why am I the only one that doesn't remember?" Martha asked, glaring at her boyfriend.

"You're not," Donna said. "Mickey doesn't either. But he grew up with Rose, and has heard enough of the stories that he has a few flashes here and there."

Martha tightened at the mention of Rose's name. She'd tried, so hard, with Martha, but once Mickey had started dating the other girl, Martha had felt like she'd come in second-best to Rose far too many times (though Rose wondered how much of that was leakthrough) and wouldn't let her in. When her memories returned, it would be interesting to see how much the real Martha Jones finally got to shine through, because what Rose's memories told her was that she was an incredible woman - one Rose would love to have as a friend.

"Maybe we should have driven up yesterday, stayed in Leadworth and been there for the whole thing," Rose muttered.

"The whole town was booked up, I checked, remember?" Jack said. "Hometown sweethearts getting married—everyone was going to be there. We wouldn't have been able to stay in Leadworth. But maybe we could have stayed nearby - it's not your fault you couldn't get a read on the timelines. You know what that means, though, Rosie."

"Fixed points, sometimes," she said, nodding, tuning out the conversation in the backseat. "Too many things in flux for me to be involved, usually."

"Which usually means that Bad Wolf knows best, even if you don't," he said, reaching out and rubbing the back of her hand. "We will get there when we're meant to get there."

"You guys always talk about 'Bad Wolf'," Martha said, sounding put-out. Whatever she and Mickey had decided, it obviously hadn't been a pleasant discussion. "Like, you, Jack - whenever someone asks why you can't die, you just start laughing and say 'Bad Wolf'. What even is 'Bad Wolf' and why does this have anything to do with today?"

"It's up to you, Rosie," Jack said, shrugging.

"Bad Wolf is me," Rose said, looking up in the mirror at Martha, who scoffed.

"No, seriously, babe, haven't you ever noticed how when she gets really, really pissed off, she sort of - glows - a bit?" Mickey asked. Martha nodded slowly.

"Happens when she's really - er - yeah," Jack said as River flashed into the car.

"Oh, he's going to kill you for that, sweetie," she said, shaking her head from the third row of seats.

"It was one kiss, she was very, very drunk, and she muttered his name halfway through," Jack said in his own defence.

"Still going to kill you at least five times," River sing-songed at him. "What's rule number one, Jack?"

Five voices, in unison, chanted, "Don't wander off."

River started laughing, while Mickey and Martha both looked confused, as though they weren't sure where the words were coming from. "Actually, rule number one is, 'The Doctor lies', but I think I like yours better. Except for Jack - for you, Jack, rule one has always been 'Hands off the blonde', and you know it." She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Ah, but which blonde?" Jack asked, shooting her a wink in the mirror.

"There's a time and place, Jack," Martha said, and then jumped a bit, looking between Mickey and Jack in utter bafflement. "Sorry, sir," she said. "I don't know where that came from."

"Oh, I do," River said. "Unfortunately, you lot missed the wedding. It was lovely, by the way. Right now, the bride is standing up in front of her guests and proclaiming that her imaginary friend is quite, quite real. And any moment now, her faith in the Doctor will pull the TARDIS back into reality. What's happening, Martha Jones, is your memories returning to you."

"Rose," Martha murmured. "I never liked the name, just - couldn't explain why. Never really cared for blondes, either. A blonde woman named Rose - oh, my god." She winced as several years' worth of memories started pouring into her head. Next to her, Mickey was doing the same.

"Jack, sweetie, you might want to pull over," River called. "I'm afraid Rose is glowing."

"S'fine," Rose muttered at them all, waving off Jack's attempts to help her once the car was safely on the side of the road. "S'just the TARDIS coming back. She's been weak for so long, and I didn't realise how much she was draining me, s'all."

"Yeah, well now it looks like she's giving it back, and then some," Jack quipped, rubbing her back in soothing circles. "Does it burn? I think I remember him saying it was going to burn you."

"Wait!" Martha said, her voice strong from the middle row of seats. "The Doctor - he said he took the power out of you!"

"Obviously, he missed some," Mickey said. "God, Rose, this is from the yellow truck, isn't it? I mean, you said you looked into the TARDIS, but - shit."

"I'll be fine," she said, and she knew her voice was doing the layering thing that tended to worry everyone, but she couldn't help it. The TARDIS coming back had flared the connection into full and vivid life after so long, and she didn't have the shields she needed to control this much of the Vortex at once. "River - Donna," she called out with as much strength as she could muster.

"Shove over," River said, climbing over the seat in front of her and doing an impressive throw to launch Mickey into the last seat. She and Donna reached for Rose, and the two familiar presences helped her gain almost immediate control over her shields, fortifying them enough to get through the next few hours, at the very least.

The golden glow that had been getting steadily stronger faded, leaving Rose limp and exhausted in the passenger seat.

"She needs tea," River said, reaching for Martha's cup from their last pit stop and handing it over to Rose. "She's just been through the equivalent of a regeneration and she needs as much tea as we can get into her body for the next fifteen hours if we want to keep her from collapsing, and even that might not be enough. She's unlikely to be herself for the next few days - just give her time."

Sipping from the cup, Rose raised an eyebrow at River. "She's still sitting right here, Professor."

"Sorry, sweetie. We're coming up on the reception hall now, and I'm even more sorry, because there's somewhere I need to be, so I can't be with you. He can't know that I've met you yet - because the me he knows hasn't. He thinks that this me is the me from his timeline - ugh, I hate this. Rose, just remember - we're all playing a part today." With those words, River pressed a few buttons on her wrist and popped out of the car.

"She doesn't seem to have any trouble with her space hopper, Jack," Martha said with a grin.

"I'm going to have to fire all of you for insubordination, aren't I?" he said, pulling back onto the motorway and getting them to the reception hall in record time.

It was easy to find the Pond-Williams wedding - it was the only thing happening in Leadworth on this particular evening. Following the sounds of music through the building, Rose and Jack led the others to a large, open room, where a beautiful redheaded woman was dancing with a slightly awkward-looking sandy-haired man with a prominent nose. Given their attire, Rose would have to guess they'd found Amelia Pond.

The only person she didn't see, not that she expected to recognise him, since he'd regenerated, was the Doctor - still, she thought that she'd at least - sense him somehow. Scanning over the guests from the punch table with Jack, she couldn't sense anything. She and River had worked with Jack, helping him block his mental signature, so his 'wrongness' wouldn't be as noticeable to those who weren't looking for it. It might be a slight itch at the back of your neck instead of a horribly uncomfortable spot in the front of your eyes.

She felt someone's eyes on her legs, and cursed River again for the stupid, effing dress that made her thighs look so bloody thick before turning to find the person and give them a good Tyler glare, but when she found the person, she was immediately caught up in beautiful green eyes.

Wide green eyes that seemed to be absolutely focused on her as though she were somehow not real. Ancient, wide green eyes that couldn't stop staring at her, completely disregarding the man standing next to her. Top hat, cravat, over-the-top fashion sense paired with ancient eyes that couldn't seem to stop staring at her?

 _Oh please_.

She took a step forward, intending to say something, anything, to the man she suspected was the Doctor, but he spun 'round immediately and all but ran from the room, long, gangly legs awkwardly putting distance between them, and she decided to follow the song, instead – she wasn't sure why it was calling her so strongly, but it seemed, in that moment, more important than following a man who was clearly running from her. The pure, golden, perfect song in her head, the one that was finally real and not just inside of her. Maybe, while he was preoccupied, she could sneak on the TARDIS, say hello to the old girl, and sneak off again. She couldn't very well stay on board if he was going to run from her.

Round the back of a large house, a little way down the lane from the wedding hall, Rose saw River, standing next to the gangly man who was unmistakably the Doctor, given that he was leaning, rather casually, against the TARDIS. And they were speaking softly, but the looks on their faces - Rose didn't know this Doctor, she couldn't categorise his expression, not with accuracy, her Doctors had always been very good at showing what they wanted others to see. This Doctor looked annoyed and intrigued at the same time, which was such a dangerous combination for the Doctor. And River? From this angle, Rose could see the woman she considered her closest friend in the world leaning into the Doctor flirtatiously. She could see all the not-so-subtle signs that the other woman was giving off. River was coming on to him. And then she disappeared, leaving him with a bemused smile, which he shook off in time to greet the bride and groom and disappear with them in the TARDIS after they waved goodbye at what they thought would be no one, but ended up being a strange, blonde woman, crying in the garden.

Once the TARDIS was gone, River appeared next to her. "I'm sorry, Rose," she whispered wrapping her arms around the younger woman despite her efforts to push her away. "I'm so sorry. I tried to warn you; I had a role to play today, the same as everyone else. The Doctor, he knows me – well, the me that he thinks he knows – she still believes herself to be his wife, and he doesn't yet know who she is, but he suspects. Their interactions follow a pattern. Flirt, banter, retreat once she gets too close. He's raw, and hurting, and realising what a colossal mistake he's made in leaving you behind. He might even suspect that the metacrisis would have suffered the same fate as Donna. He's got notes in the TARDIS' computer for trying to get back to you, but she's told him, many times, that it would destroy the Universe, and selfish he might be, even he isn't that selfish."

She held the blonde tighter as the sobs eased, and Rose allowed her own arms to go around River's waist. "You're leaving now, aren't you?"

"It's time," she admitted. "The next time you see me, it won't be this me. I'll be younger, brasher, and very much convinced of who I am to the Doctor." She sighed, kissing Rose's head. "When it's over, and you've successfully rewritten all of it that you can, my friend, I'll come back, if I'm able. I have to leave these for my other self," she added, tapping the worn blue journal and vortex manipulator. "Without her 'space hopper', River has been trapped in Leadworth and this time period since 1996, unable to leave except for traditional means. She got to watch Amy and Rory grow up, which was a kindness to her, because she's terribly fond of them, but as you'll learn, soon, it was also a cruelty. The Doctor had her only transport, and never thought about how that would trap her."

"I love you, River," Rose said, wiping her eyes as best she could, knowing the other woman wouldn't say anything to the others. "Give your husband my love."

"He told me that if you'd figured it out to make sure you knew that despite his marriage, you were still his very best girl, and would always be worth dying for," River said through her own tears, dropping a kiss on Rose's cheek and squeezing her in a tight hug.

"I know you won't know me when we meet again, but you'll still be my best friend, River."

"All you have to do is convince me." River nodded. "And the Doctor. He looked a bit haunted when I spoke to him before. Like he'd seen a ghost. Can't imagine what that's about." They shared a giggle. River took a deep breath. "I'm very much looking forward to meeting again, when we both remember every conversation we've ever had, and can have some of your delicious tea, when we both know the true name of my husband, the identity of the Bad Wolf, and can argue over whose mate is a worse flirt when they are lounging on hammocks under the console, passing compliments and tools and insults between one another."

"It's a date," Rose said, nodding. "As long as you learn how to make a proper cuppa by then."

Both of them were blinking rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. "If I don't go now, I won't go at all," River said, her voice shaking. "We will see each other, as friends and equals. I promise."

Before Rose could reply, she popped out, leaving Rose standing alone in the garden. Jack, Mickey, Martha, and Donna were waiting for her by the car when she finally made her way to it.

Over the next few months, Jack and Donna popped to the fifty-first century a few times, finally tracking down the man Donna had met in the computer's core. He was without family and all too happy to join their rather reduced team in the wake of the 456. With Mickey and Rose in the field, Jack handling the leadership now that Rose had stepped aside, Martha as their medic, Donna handling computers and administration, and Lee as her assistant and the team's gopher, they're all doing fairly well. Donna and Lee had found a pleasant, well lit flat and were considering marriage, while Mickey, Martha, Jack, and Rose had ultimately decided on a three-bedroom flat near the Hub. While they couldn't prove it was River's doing, someone had gifted each of them a vortex manipulator based on her own, and a sonic based on the one she claimed was the one that had saved her – the Doctor's. Rose had giggled a bit to find that hers emitted a pink light against the blue of the others'. The Doctor-Donna was already hard at work modifying each of them with the technology she had at the Hub.

They were ready to let go of 2010, and welcome in 2011, when a mysterious note appeared on Rose's mirror in gold lettering that she was sure she hadn't put there herself, even though the writing was her own.

_I bet you're going to have a really great year._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it wasn't the reunion you were hoping for. But as this is the last time we'll see THIS River for quite some time, I felt that goodbye was far more important than the reunion. I don't know about you lot, but Rose and I are QUITE fond of our River, and it's hard letting her go. Thankfully, we all know she's going to a future that's going to be a bit happier, and that she has her husband to keep her company.


	8. Something Borrowed, Something Blue

**Chapter 8.**

**Something Borrowed, Something Blue**

 

Rose knew her friends wouldn’t complain, but she knew they were more than a little fed up with her lately. Micks had pulled more than his fair share of pranks on her to try to get her to lighten up, until Martha had roundly smacked him and reminded him of just what Rose had been through (she suspected there might have been a withholding of sexual privileges as well, but she couldn’t be positive - they tended to keep that pretty quiet in their bedroom).

 

Mickey’s pranks, however, reached new heights one afternoon in March.

 

“I know I said you needed to move on, babe, but since when do you and Cheesecake get joint mail?” he asked, pointing at an envelope on the piecrust table that had once served as a buffer between her and River, so many years ago. A blue envelope. A very distinctive blue, at that.

 

“Honestly, Micks, didn’t Martha tell you what she’d do to you if you didn’t lay off the jokes?” Rose asked, swatting him on the arm as she ignored the obvious prank mail and stalked off to her bedroom.

 

“Yeah, cuz I’m gonna take the time to send you a letter with seven stamps on it, in that god-awful colour, and bloody gold writing, addressed to The Bad Wolf and the Face of Boe,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “Even I’m not so stupid as to have mail addressed that way coming to the flat. Maybe the Hub,” he amended, shrugging his shoulders a bit sheepishly. “But never the flat. Doesn’t do to let the bad guys know where you live.”

 

Rose looked at her oldest and best friend, searching for sincerity in his face. His eyes were open, true, and she blanked. If he was being honest - she glanced at the letter, address-up, on the table. The script was loopy, unfamiliar, but the words were exactly as he’d described. Her phone was in her hand before she even realised she had thought about it, and Jack was answering before she knew she’d dialled him.

 

“Rosie, I’m a bit busy,” he said, his code for ‘flirting outrageously with whatever stranger happens to catch my fancy’.

 

“And we have a situation sitting on our end table, addressed to two of the most feared beings in the Universe, in a very telling shade of blue,” she said, cutting directly to the chase.

 

“Is it ticking?” he asked, sighing. She knew he hated having to dispose of bombs.

 

“Not that I can tell, but I haven’t touched it. It’s just - an envelope. Maybe a card. A letter. But the colour - Jack - nothing good comes from that colour.” She was shaking, and Mickey had one arm wrapped around her, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly.

 

“Rosie, plenty of good things have come from that colour. Just because that particular shade of blue hasn’t been so kind to us the past few years doesn’t mean it’ll be all downhill from here. Maybe this is a good thing. I’ll be home in a flash,” he promised, and Rose hung up. That was his code for ‘I’m going to find the nearest quiet place and use the Vortex Manipulator that River was nice enough to give me’.

 

A few moments of staring at the envelope later, and Jack flashed into the flat with a bright light. “You weren’t kidding about the colour,” he said, standing next to her and wrapping his arm around her from the other side. Martha came in, raised one eyebrow at the sight of the two men practically holding Rose up between them, and followed Mickey’s finger to the familiar blue-tinted envelope sitting on the table.

 

“Has it been scanned?” she asked, Commander Jones jumping into action.

 

“Not yet,” Mickey admitted. “We’ve all just been sort of - staring at it.”

 

“Right,” Martha said, nodding once and pulling out her sonic. She pointed it at the innocuous-looking paper on the table and for a moment the room seemed devoid of air as they all took in a deep breath and held it.

 

The readout was almost instantaneous. “Human. Earth. Origin 2011. Residual Time Traces. No genetic material.” Martha read it aloud with relief. Rose sagged between her two support columns, and Mickey gladly transferred her weight to Jack, who reached for the envelope.

 

“It’s not him, Jack,” she whispered.

 

“You don’t know that, Rosie,” he said. “Though I’d be curious to find out why he’d address it to - oh. You think it was River.”

 

Rose nodded. Very carefully, Jack slit the envelope open with the letter opener they kept on the table, which was mostly used for dropping mail and keys. He pulled out a single card, white parchment on the same blue paper, with a string of numbers.

 

“I think we’ve been summoned,” Rose said, her voice betraying her nervousness only slightly.

 

“What’s that number on the envelope mean?” Mickey asked, pointing to the carefully drawn golden ‘0’ inscribed in the same neat hand that had penned the names and direction on the front.

 

“Depends on the source, I suppose,” Martha said. “Trish was into numerology at one point, and I think it has something to do with eternity, infinity, or something like that. She was always going on about how the Harry Potter books were yammering about the power of seven when zero was really the most significant of all the numbers.”

 

Jack was watching her carefully. “It’s your call. Whether it was him or River, it’s your choice, because I can almost guarantee that this has everything to do with him.”

 

A conversation, many years in the past for her now, came back to her, when River told her that for her, it would begin with a blue envelope, and that River wouldn’t know her, and probably wouldn’t like her. She’d all but forgotten it, but staring at the envelope now, she saw the timeline stretch before them in all of its inevitability, and her eyes flashed gold for a brief moment.

 

“Look, Jack,” was all she said. She’d been trying to teach him, in as much as she could, to at least see the faint markers of timelines, she knew he had basic training in it from his work with the Time Agency, and she was honing his skills based on that little bit of Bad Wolf he had lingering in him, just as she’d been working on teaching him to dampen the effect he would have on those sensitive to fixed points, so he would be able to pass in more time-sensitive places without undue notice. He wasn’t that great at it yet, and sometimes he still needed to reach for her hand to help himself along, but the faint flare of the Bad Wolf, combined with the traces on the letter seemed to be enough.

 

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he nodded. “Okay, I get it. Time’s in flux, but - we - for lack of a better word - have to be there, or it’s going to get ugly. Hell, it’s probably going to get ugly anyway.”

 

“River kept saying there were two timelines,” Rose said. “I think we’re about to start really writing those. She mentioned a blue envelope once. This is where it begins for us, Jack. She won’t know us. She won’t trust us. She won’t be our River.”

 

Jack closed his eyes again and nodded slowly, and Rose knew how much this would hurt them both. Not their Doctor, not their River - strangers, the both of them, in place of people they both loved so much.

 

Three days later, backpacks ready, they both flashed to the coordinates three hours early, and then settled in on a rocky outcropping, requisite cowboy hats protecting their faces and necks from the sun, passing water bottles back and forth, waiting for some sign of the Doctor or his current companions.

 

“I don’t know about you, but I need to pee,” Jack muttered after about two hours. Rose just laughed and pointed behind her.

 

“Promise I won’t look if you won’t,” she said.

 

“Back in five,” he said, wandering off behind a rock, and Rose was suddenly grateful for the isolated surroundings and the moist towellettes that Martha had insisted she bring. When Jack returned, Rose took her turn, trying to remember the last time she’d had had to relieve herself in the wide open.

 

“We’ve got a car,” Jack said when she returned, her hands smelling slightly of baby wipes. Car was an understatement, Rose decided, looking at the classic American station wagon in front of her.

 

“You think it’s them?” she asked, wondering where the TARDIS was.

 

“Dunno,” he said, shrugging. “I’d put it at late 1950s – looks like a ’59 Edsel,” he said, and his tone was admiring.

 

“I never knew you were into cars, Jack,” she teased, and he shrugged.

 

“I lived through that era, remember?”

 

She ducked her head. As heartless as it was, sometimes she really did forget that Jack was far, far older than she was - and that it was her fault. He was so nonchalant about it, too, as though the weight of centuries wasn’t pressing down on him. She reached out and laid a comforting hand on his arm, and he grinned at her in reassurance.

 

The car didn’t move from its spot on the side of the road, but no one moved for a good forty minutes. It was as though it had just driven itself there and parked. And then, the passenger - no, this was America, Rose reminded herself, that was the driver’s door - opened, and a tall, gangly man in tweed and a Stetson, not unlike the ones she and Jack were sporting, stepped out, and arranged himself in what he probably thought was a casual position on the hood.

 

“It’s him,” she said as softly as she could, knowing how keen the Doctor’s hearing was. She wanted to keep their position a secret for as long as possible.

 

Jack nodded. There was a stillness to the very air itself, as though all of time were holding its breath, and Rose felt it pressing on her uncomfortably. Something was wrong, so very, very wrong, with this entire place, this moment in time, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Jack’s twitching beside her told her he could feel it, too, and she had no idea how the Doctor could be so casually lounging as though the world weren’t practically standing still beneath their feet, and she realised that of course he must feel it, and that was, naturally, why he was here - why they were all here.

 

In the distance, a yellow school bus was approaching, and Rose nodded to Jack. This was the distraction they needed to approach the Doctor, make their presence known. As the bus slowed to a stop, they made their way down to the red car, and Rose could swear her heart was going to leap out of her chest at any moment.

 

He thought he was ready. In reality, he knew he wouldn’t actually be dying today, but to have to put them all through this - especially Amy, knowing what he knew about what the future held for her - Amy whom he hadn’t seen in over a century, his precious Pond who would have to believe he was dead after this. And River, who would be in prison for murdering him, River, the daughter of his best friend; River, the woman he was supposed to marry, the woman he still hadn’t told his name, and wasn’t sure he ever could. This was the end of them all. After this, the Doctor would fade into obscurity until he could ferret out the Silence; determine why they had been trying to eliminate him for centuries, why they had raised Melody Pond into a weapon against him. In a way, he _would_ die today.

 

He could feel the stillness of the timelines, oh so many of them hinging on this single fixed point that he’d managed to elude, he hoped, and as he lay stretched on the hood, he allowed himself a luxury he hadn’t indulged in since the day Melody Pond had become River Song - thoughts of Rose Tyler. What had become of her when the Universe had rebooted? Oh, he’d been so tempted to look her up, to see if she was still in his Universe, once he’d realised the significance of Amy having no memory of Canary Wharf or the Medusa Cascade, but if he were wrong - _oh, if he were wrong_. He couldn’t bear that. Worse, if he were right, and Rose hated him.

 

No, better to forget Rose Tyler, or so he told himself whenever he found his mind straying towards her, as it had, despite his best efforts.

 

Instead, he tried to think of River, of what she would be forced to both do and witness today, completely unaware of what was happening until it was too late, unaware that the attacker was herself until the deed was done. Pity wasn’t an emotion he wanted to associate with his future wife, but it was the one she most commonly inspired in him. He knew she thought she’d been clever, that day at the Byzantium, telling him she’d killed the best man she’d known, but he’d seen it in her eyes, then - the flash of pain, the way they lingered on his face as though she was afraid she’d never see him again. The pieces weren’t hard to put together, not for someone as clever as he was.

 

River Song was in prison for killing him. The woman who knew his name was the woman who was in prison for his murder. It didn’t precisely inspire thoughts of romance in him. He snorted to himself, listening to the sounds of the bus that was making its approach. That would hopefully be the Ponds. The last time he’d see them. And River, too, for that matter. He really should find some way to tell her, before their time was up. If not, she’d never earn his trust in the Library, and the entire circular paradox would fall apart at the seams. How had he managed to do it, he wondered for not the first time.

 

The bus pulled up, dropping off its passengers, and he dropped his line of thought, though something was niggling him at the edge of his consciousness - something wasn’t quite right, and it was more than just the timelines being in still around the fixed point. He couldn’t quite place it, though.

 

“This is it, yeah? The right place?” came Amy’s voice, and he smiled a little.

 

“Nowhere, middle of?” Rory’s reply was so very typical that the Doctor had to refrain from smirking. “Yeah, this is it.”

 

Pulling out his best Jack Harkness imitation (the TARDIS had found that one hilarious in those fourteen years of nothingness, if he remembered correctly), he called, “Howdy,” to his two friends.

 

There was a lot of shouting, a lot of hugging, a lot of the usual, good-natured flirting that just seemed to come naturally to this body, despite that niggling sense that something was so very, very _wrong_ , and he tried to ignore it as he extolled the virtues of his new hat, wondering why he was at all surprised when River showed up out of nowhere and shot it clean off his head.

 

It was the laughter that really did him in, though. He tensed, for just a moment, hating that human weakness, and then pointedly ignored the sound coming from the back of the car, since it didn’t seem that anyone else could hear it - and why should they? It wasn’t like they were having hallucinations of Rose Tyler. No, she was only his personal ghost, having been haunting him for the past several centuries, ever since he’d been trapped on the other side of the cracks.

 

When he turned to usher the Ponds and their daughter into the car, chattering away, still ignoring his ghost (though why she was with Jack Harkness, of all people, and wearing a hat very much like the one that had just been shot off his head was anyone’s guess at that point), he spun around to realise that his companions had all frozen, staring at the end of the car in surprise, and that River was downright glaring.

 

“Doctor,” Amy said, catching him up and tugging on his sleeve. “Who are they?” she asked, pointing towards his ghost and her companion.

 

He looked from Amy to Rory to River, and then back to Rose and Jack, before turning to Amy and looking down at her in desperation. “You see them, too, Pond?” he asked.

 

“We _all_ see them, Doctor,” Rory said, sounding exasperated. “Are you going to introduce them, or just stare at them like they’re ghosts?”

 

“Hello,” she called, and he noticed that she grasped Jack’s hand, tugging him along with her as she took the few steps along the length of the car that separated the two parties. “S’alright, he’s just rude. Rude, and apparently _still_ not ginger. I’m Rose Tyler, and he’s Captain Jack Harkness. We’re old friends of the Doctor’s, and I expect he’s a bit surprised to see us.”

 

“In this Universe,” he muttered, before he could control his gob. His eyes flashed to Rose’s guiltily, but her face was a smiling mask, something he’d never seen from her. No, he realised, that wasn’t right. She’d done that once before - after the spaceship with the windows to France. She’d walked around wearing a smiley mask for several days before things had gotten back to normal, and that was only because - oh, right. Yeah. Best not to go there.

 

“Doctor,” Jack said coldly, reminding him of the last time he’d seen Jack unexpectedly.

 

“Captain,” he responded, following the script. “I see you’ve had more work done.” He felt his lips tugging upwards a little at the familiar banter, but Jack’s face didn’t lighten in response.

 

“Once again, you’ve no room to talk,” Jack said. “Doctor Song, it’s a pleasure to meet you, and to have the drop on you, for once.”

 

The Doctor felt his eyebrows rise astronomically. Jack knew River? Did that mean - yes, Rose was smiling at River, who was decidedly not returning the smile in the slightest. Oh, this was bad, this was very, very not good.

 

“Not to be rude, but why are you here?” Amy asked, looking between the two strangers. The Doctor found he was quite curious to know the answer to that, as well. He knew precisely who he’d sent envelopes to, and he was quite certain that Jack and Rose hadn’t been included.

 

Rose reached into her bag and pulled out an impossibly blue envelope, crossed over in gold script - not the silver he’d used to address the letters he’d sent. “We were invited.”

 

He snatched the envelope from her, his hands shaking as he noticed the zero etched on the back flap, soaking in everything that meant, and flipping it over, curious to see if the handwriting would give him any clues as to who had sent the missive to them. And that was when he saw the recipients.

 

“Bad Wolf,” he whispered. “No. No, no, no, no, no!” It took every last bit of willpower he had left not to shred the envelope.

 

Rose stepped closer, until her eyes were within inches of his, and for a brief moment, they flashed gold, and he made it a point to wave at her from the eye of the Teselecta, hoping to convey what he couldn’t tell her in front of the audience, despite the fact that the flash of gold had him terrified. He could deal with that after the fixed point was taken care of.

 

“I create myself,” she said, and for a moment, he could see her as she had been, glowing with the power of the entire Vortex running through her and how had he been so stupid as to never check on it after that.

 

“Right, then, Amy and Rory Pond ( _Williams_!), River Song, meet Jack and Rose, old friends of mine, from very long ago,” he said. “They’ve thrown a bit of a kink into my plans for the day, but I think we still have time to have a nice picnic down on the lakeshore, what do you say, Ponds?”

 

“A picnic?” Rory asked, his face dumbstruck. “You brought us all the way out here to go on a picnic?”

 

“Oh, there’s so much more to it than that, Rory,” he said, a bit sadly, ushering everyone into the car, slightly sad that his plans to spend just a bit more time alone with his Ponds had been interrupted by the unplanned arrival of Rose Tyler and the Captain. Which was - disconcerting. He knew he didn’t remember them being with his younger self in the diner, nor during the encounters with the Silence that followed. Not on Demons Run – Rassilon, he hoped Rose never saw him as he’d been that day.

 

Rose and Jack were hanging back as he chatted with the Ponds and River while setting up the picnic, and he used his sensitive hearing to his advantage, telling the Ponds what was in store for them - though not for him, not this him, anyway - while eavesdropping on the conversation Rose and Jack were having softly a short distance away.

 

“Something’s not right, Jack,” she was whispering. “S’not really him. S’like a Doctor-suit or something, and he’s driving it.”

 

“Teselecta,” Jack breathed. Rose looked up at him, and Jack explained the Teselecta to her in an undertone while she leaned into him for comfort. With a surge of jealousy, the Doctor wondered just how close they’d become over the past few years.

 

“So, what you’re saying, is that thing is a robot and the Doctor is driving it?” Rose said, closing her eyes and focusing on - as he settled in with a bottle of wine and his companions, patiently waiting for them, he felt what Rose was doing - she was sensing the timelines. “Oh. Jack, whatever happens, pretend to believe it, with your whole heart, and I promise I’ll explain as soon as I can,” she said quickly, pressing a swift kiss to his cheek and giving a true, genuine Rose Tyler smile to the group as she joined them.

 

“Wine?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, her tongue coming out in her grin. “Oh, I already know how this is going to end,” she muttered.

 

“So, when are we going to 1969?” Rory asked, ignoring Rose’s muttering, but Amy latched on to it.

 

“Yes, since when do you drink wine?” she demanded, looking at him curiously, her eyes darting between him and Rose rapidly.

 

“I’m eleven hundred and three, I must have drunk it sometime,” he said, pouting and preparing to take a large gulp from the bottle. Before he could, Rose opened her mouth to launch into a story, a story he knew would only end in embarrassment for him, so he glared at her. “Not a word, Rose Tyler. Not a word.” Remembering that Jack had been there, he turned to find the man smirking, and glared at him for good measure. “That goes double for you, Captain.”

 

“Always with the rules,” Jack mumbled. “Don’t wander off. Don’t say hello. Hands off the blonde. Sheesh, you’re getting boring in your old age.”

 

Before anyone could comment on that last rule, which the Doctor was really, really astonished Jack had mentioned in front of other people, Amy turned her head and noticed the Silent watching them. It was starting, for them at least. For him, this was the end. When the others tried to find out what was wrong with Amy, he distracted them with his ‘ponderings’ on the moon.

 

“Human beings. I thought I’d never get done saving you,” this new Doctor said, and it was the final confirmation Rose needed to confirm the suspicion she’d had since she’d seen the tiny Doctor waving at her from inside the Doctor’s eye. He was going to die today, and he’d found some way around it. Bad Wolf had flared to life, looking for flaws in his plan, making sure that any and all contingencies were covered, that there was no possible fault line upon which the entire scheme could break down and shatter all of time and space, because that was what was wrong with this event. Time was just - off - here, at this particular place, in this particular time. Creating a fixed point here - undoing it could be disastrous, and she really didn’t fancy having a Big Bang Three.

 

And surprisingly, the one thing Bad Wolf had seen that could muck it all up was the last person Rose would have suspected: River Song. Still, if her own experiences had given her anything to go by, it was to never, ever underestimate the determination of a woman in love with the Doctor, and despite what her River had told her, the River of this time, of this place, was very, very much in love with the Doctor - or at least she believed she was. And Rose was oh so very curious to know how that had come about.

 

Fading in and out of existence, she saw it, as the events played out before her with a sort of horrified sense of inevitability - River - the River in the spacesuit - trying to alter all of time and space to save the life of the man she loved. She knew they would eventually catch up to that River, it was only a matter of time, and she would have to live out that portion of the timeline, but for now, she could only watch in a sort of stupor as the robot-Doctor walked calmly up to the woman he considered his wife and held a brief conversation with her before she killed him.

 

River and Rory were holding Amy back, but Rose was numb. She’d watched her first Doctor regenerate, literally turn into someone else right before her eyes. She’d seen her second Doctor shot by a Dalek, cheat regeneration, only to end up having to watch a version of him die later. She didn’t know this Doctor - he wasn’t hers. And that made this very, very simple.

 

The man in the pickup introduced himself, produced his blue envelope, and she watched as River’s keen eyes scanned the marking on the back, before she, Rose, Jack, and Rory committed the robot-Doctor to his pyre.

 

Her eyes were dry. There was nothing to be done. Jack was silent, watching her for some sort of breakdown, she suspected, but she’d tried to warn him, explain - he had to know, as well as she did, that whatever trick that had been, the Doctor was not dead. For some reason, it was necessary to fake his own death, creating this very fragile fixed point - and putting his wife and companions through this hell. She wasn’t sure she could forgive him for that. This was utterly cruel, and she had never thought him capable of this.

 

She reminded herself, again, that this wasn’t her Doctor. Her Doctor had been gone for at least two centuries, and it seemed like a new one had taken his place. She remembered the day this one had come back, and River’s casual recitation of rule one, ‘the Doctor lies’. No, this was not her Doctor. Her Doctor had needed a hand to hold, but this Doctor clearly needed someone to stop him, because whatever he’d gotten himself into, it was far more than he could handle on his own, and as much as Amy adored him, with all the hero-worship of a child, she was clearly not strong enough to actually stop him.

 

She looked at Jack, and he nodded. It would be up to them.

 

“There’s a small diner not too far from here,” he said, once the pyre had burned down to embers. “Perhaps we should try to rest, regroup.”

 

River nodded at his suggestion and gathered the Ponds with her, leading them back to the Doctor’s car. Jack drove, and Rose rode with him in front, while River attempted to calm Amy from the backseat and Rory silently held his wife.

 

“You got three, I was two, Mr. Delaware was four,” River said as they walked into the diner. It was clear she wanted nothing to do with Rose and Jack, and while it stung, Rose reminded herself that this was not her River. This woman barely knew her, and she’d just lost the man she considered her husband.

 

“So?” Rory asked, clearly not following.

 

“So, where’s one?” River said, her voice urgent, as though it was vitally important. Rose suspected that River already knew the answer, or thought she did, because she kept glancing at her and Jack, and she remembered that no one but the Doctor had seen the envelope she and Jack possessed.

 

“What, you think he invited someone else?” Rory asked, following River’s eyes to Rose and Jack as they made a beeline for the blue envelope they’d spotted as soon as they walked in. Rose nodded to Jack as she saw the ‘1’ marked on the back.

 

“Well, he must have,” River insisted. “He planned all of this, to the last detail.” Rory again looked at Rose and Jack, and Rose wondered if he was remembering the Doctor’s reaction to their rather unexpected arrival. She sat down at the table, looking at the solitary drink, still cold, sitting next to the blue envelope, both waiting on the table.

 

“Will you two shut up,” Amy said, and Rose winced at the pain in her voice.

 

“It must be something major for him to put her through this,” Jack murmured, too low for the others to hear. Rose nodded. He nodded to the men’s room and vanished through the door.

 

Rose attempted to tune out the rest of the conversation the others were having, catching snippets. Amy’s insistence that whatever the Doctor had planned didn’t matter anymore, since he was dead, River’s ardent demands that it did, that they still had to complete whatever mission he wanted them to complete regarding space in 1969.

 

Rose held up the envelope, and Rory asked the man at the counter who had been sitting there as Rose dropped it back on the table. She was pretty sure she knew who had engineered this - it really could only have been one of two people, and given that the Doctor hadn’t been expecting her, that left River, herself. However, since River was currently standing not ten feet from her - perhaps River had invited Rose and Jack, and the Doctor had invited the others. She may never know the answer.

 

River was staring hard at the envelope she was now holding in her hands. “The Doctor knew he was going to his death, so he sent out messages. When you know it’s the end, who do you call?”

 

Rory looked at Rose, who still hadn’t produced her envelope for them. “Er - your friends. The people you trust.”

 

River grinned. “Number 1, who did the Doctor trust most?”

 

Rory, again, looked at Rose, who shook her head. Once, she would have thought she was that person, but this wasn’t her Doctor. This Doctor hadn’t even thought to send her a letter, inviting her to his death. She didn’t know if she was insulted or not.

 

The door to the bathroom opened, and she looked up, expecting to see Jack, but of course, it was the Doctor. Younger, less hunted. That was evident by the lack of tension around his eyes. She noticed that this Doctor, too, slid his eyes over her, as though afraid she was a hallucination. She decided to play the part, for a bit. See how long it took him to acknowledge that she was real. Might be a bit of fun.

 

“This is cold. Even by your standards, this is cold.” River’s voice held a wrath that Rose had only heard once before - the day she’d shot that Slitheen. Interesting.

 

“Or, hello, as people used to say,” the Doctor said, cheerily, as though he hadn’t just been insulted, glancing around at his friends, his gaze sliding over her effortlessly, and she wondered, then, just how many times he thought he’d seen her when she really hadn’t been there. Oh, this was actually a bit sad, wasn’t it?

 

“Doctor?” Amy asked, and Rose cringed. There was one who would screw up the whole paradox if she wasn’t reigned in and soon. Just how long had she been travelling with him if she couldn’t figure it out?

 

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he made some nonsensical comment about a straw, holding it up as though it were a prized possession, and she wondered, really, how wrong his regeneration had gone. The too-short trousers, the bowtie, the tweed - the look was completely daft. At least her two Doctors had managed to dress well enough to blend in, but this one stood out like a sore thumb. And awkward didn’t even begin to cover him.

 

She watched him bounce around his companions, trying to cheer up Amy and generally being rubbish at it, and she noticed Jack hovering in the door to the bathrooms. When the Doctor went in to hug Rory, mentioning something about Romans, Jack shot her a look and she shrugged. But when River slapped him, at least twice as hard as Jackie had, Rose lost her battle with pretend invisibility, and burst into laughter.

 

As the Doctor pretended not to hear her (again), Rory, Amy, and River all chose to glare at her.

 

“Wait,” the Doctor said, staring at his companions in turn. “You can all see her?”

 

He spun round and, much as Amy had done to him moments before, proceeded to poke her gently in the shoulder with an odd look on his face, jumping back a bit when she turned out to be solid. “Rose Tyler,” he said, grinning. “Look at you! Fantastic Rose Tyler! Ponds! River! Look! It’s Rose Tyler!”

 

“We’ve met,” River said, shortly, and Jack laughed from his spot in the doorway, sauntering over to look the Doctor over carefully.

 

“Nice chin,” Jack said, looking directly at the protrusion, and grinned when the Doctor rubbed it self-consciously.

 

“Captain,” he replied, looking baffled.

 

“I don’t understand,” Rory said, breaking up the tension. “How can you be here?”

 

“I was invited,” the Doctor said. “Never mind me, though - Rose Tyler, how can _you_ be here? You’re meant to be in a parallel world, having babies, and doing all those human things.” He didn’t look put out, in fact, he looked a little too pleased to see her, and Rose wondered if she should blame Bad Wolf, and let him off the hook, or let him feel the full weight of his actions.

 

Jack took the decision away from her. “Do the words ‘Big Bang Two’ ring any bells?”

 

Amy and Rory tensed, but River just looked from one to the other of them. Jack smirked. “Doctor Song, I have been waiting years to say this to you,” he said, flashing her a flirtatious grin. “Spoilers.”

 

River laughed, then. “Oh, I suppose I can see now why that infuriates him so much. Still, I suppose it’s something to look forward to. It sounds rather - explosive,” she said suggestively.

 

“Right, then,” Rory said, looking a bit queasy. “Why are we all here then?”

 

“I was invited, same as you lot, I assume, date, map reference, I assume, otherwise, it’s a hell of a coincidence,” the Doctor said, pulling the card out of his envelope.

 

“I don’t understand,” Amy said, looking around at all of them in confusion. “River, what’s going on?”

 

“Amy, ask him what age he is.” River’s voice was shaking. Rose could see this getting very ugly, very fast, as the Doctor languidly plopped into the seat next to her that Jack hadn’t claimed, draping an arm around her shoulders like he used to, as though nothing had changed, when everything had - he just didn’t realise it yet.

 

“That’s a bit personal,” he said, looking between River and Amy suspiciously, and Rose could see his clever, brilliant mind starting to put the pieces together.

 

“Tell her,” River insisted, not taking her eyes off his face.

 

“Nine hundred and nine,” he answered casually. “And you’re being terribly rude, by the way. Rose, perhaps you can tell me what’s going on?”

 

For the first time since they’d set eyes on each other earlier that day, River looked at her with something other than disdain or distrust - now her old friend was looking at her pleadingly. “It seems,” she said, rolling her eyes as Amy tried to mutter to River the age the dead Doctor had said he was - god that girl really was going to give the whole thing away, and damage a bloody fixed point! “That we’ve been recruited. Something to do with space in 1969.”

 

“Oh, and don’t forget Canton Everett Delaware III,” Jack added.

 

“Right,” River said. “We can’t forget Mr. Delaware.”

 

Amy was muttering that she didn’t understand to Rory, who was trying, sotto voice, to force her to admit that she did, she just didn’t want to admit it. Rose was pleased - at least one of them understood how dangerous this was.

 

“Recruited?” the Doctor asked, looking between River and Rose, as though they were colluding against him - which, Rose supposed they were, to some degree. “Recruited by whom?”

 

“Someone who trusts you more than anyone in the Universe,” River said. The Doctor looked at Rose, who shook her head to say it wasn’t her.

 

“And who is that?” he asked, looking directly at River.

 

“Spoilers,” she said, but Rose had never heard the word come from her mouth with so little vigour or amusement.

 

“Right, well, then, into the TARDIS, you lot,” the Doctor said. “Rose, Jack, you haven’t seen what the old girl looks like now!”

 

As he practically shoved them all through the doors of the TARDIS, yammering on a million miles a minute about utterly nothing, she knew he was trying to put the pieces together, to figure out what had happened to his companions to put them in such a state. Amy was the first to crack, and she disappeared down a small flight of stairs while Rose stood in the doorway with Jack, absorbing the new interior of the TARDIS.

 

“What do you think?” he asked, standing in front of her, as River followed Amy. She saw him watching the two out of the corner of his eye.

 

“She’s always beautiful, but how did this happen?”

 

“Ah, well, regeneration went a bit wrong,” he admitted, ducking his head. “I might have - er - destroyed the old console room.”

 

Jack laughed, and pushed past him, making to follow Amy and River. The Doctor turned to Rory. “Rory, is everybody cross with me?”

 

The young man looked extremely uncomfortable at being put on the spot. “I’ll go find out,” he muttered. “Rose?” She nodded and followed, patting the Doctor on the shoulder as she passed him.

 

Once she was below the main console, she met Jack’s eyes, making sure he was just as aware as she was of the fact that the Doctor was eavesdropping - the glass floor above them showed his legs standing close enough to them that with his hearing, even as softly as River and the others were talking, he had to be able to overhear. Whatever this was, it was between the Doctor and his current companions. She and Jack were the cleanup crew.

 

As the long, awkward stride moved off, and the TARDIS went into flight, she knew he’d heard enough to know what was going on, and was probably trying to plan his next course of action. He was too clever for them, and River should have known this.

 

His long legs appeared over her head again, and she knew he was listening, choosing the best moment to interrupt. “I’m being extremely clever up here and there’s no one to stand around looking impressed! What’s the point in having you all?” he called, leaning over the railing.

 

“Couldn’t you just slap him sometimes?” River asked, looking amused and annoyed.

 

As the others went up, Rose and Jack stayed below for a few extra moments, keeping their eyes pointed towards the glass floor above them to avoid being overheard.

 

“I don’t like this, Jack,” she said. “They’re not being rational about this. Even River is being far too emotional. They all should have known he’d listen in, and instead, they’re either pretending not to understand that, or they’re really that ignorant of his personality.”

 

“Rosie, they don’t know it wasn’t real,” Jack reminded her. “You can’t be so harsh on them. They’ve just been through something traumatic, and they think it was all real. They’re going to be looking for ways around it, for some way to stop it - you heard Amy. There’s something bigger at work here, and you and I both know it. And the Doctor suspects - worse, he probably has a very good idea of what’s happened. I know you have his memories, Rose. This is going to turn ugly, quick. We protect the Doctor, even from himself, and we protect the Ponds. Dunno if you noticed, but Amy was holding her stomach a lot.”

 

“Yeah, I saw that,” Rose said, shaking her head. “Pregnancy and travelling with the Doctor isn’t a good mix. Especially when she’s had a shock like this. But there’s something - Jack, there’s something I can’t see - it’s like there’s a hundred thousand timelines converging on this point, and everything could change, or nothing could, just depending on how this one trip plays out.”

 

“Then we’d best get to work,” he said, giving her a hug and leading her up the stairs.

 

The Doctor was sitting, slumped in one of the jump seats scattered around the console room, and Rose noticed that none were the large, battered one that had been just big enough for the two of them to cuddle on; no, these seats were meant for one person. Lonely - lonely and full of rage - that’s what he was, sitting there, knowing that his friends were hiding something from him, knowing what it was.

 

He removed his hand from his eyes, and glared at all of them, Rose and Jack included. She tried not to flinch from the absolute ice in his stare. “What? A mysterious summons. You think I’m just going to go?”

 

Rose paused at the top of the stairs, recognising the Oncoming Storm, never imagining she’d actually see it turned on his companions. He glanced at her, his eyes begging her not to make him do this, but she returned his glare. She did not approve, and she was not amused.

 

“Who sent those messages? I know you know, I can see it in your faces,” he continued, and his voice was dangerously soft.

 

The calm before the Storm, Rose thought, fleetingly, looking between River, Rory, and Amy, who were all having trouble meeting his eyes.

 

“Don’t play games with me - don’t ever, ever think you’re capable of that,” he said, and his tone was so absolutely dismissive that Rose wanted to lay a smack on him that would put Jackie Tyler and River Song to shame. Jack grabbed her hand as River started to speak.

 

“You’re going to have to trust us this time,” River said, her voice lacking its usual fire.

 

“Trust you? Sure,” he said, and even if the others couldn’t Rose could hear the mockery in his voice. This wasn’t her Doctor, but there were some things that were universal. He stood, invading River’s personal space in a horribly threatening manner. “But first of all, Doctor Song, just one thing. Who are you? You’re someone from my future, getting that. But who?” He paused, giving her time to answer, knowing that she couldn’t - Rose couldn’t believe he was being so cruel.

 

Jack’s grip on her wrist tightened. “Okay, why are you in prison? Who did you kill? Hm? Now I love a bad girl, me, but trust you, seriously?”

 

 _He knows_ , Rose realised. He knew exactly who River killed, why she was in prison - he was taunting her, being deliberately cruel. She broke Jack’s grip on her wrist and stepped forward, and the Doctor spun to face her, but before she could berate him (and she saw the flash of guilt in his eyes, knew that he knew he’d stepped over the line), Amy spoke up.

 

“Trust me,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been since she’d seen him die on the lakeshore.

 

“Okay,” he said, his tone clearly indicating that it wasn’t enough, she’d have to do better, and Rose remembered when simply _existing_ was enough to be the Doctor’s companion. When did proving yourself like this become part of the agreement? She continued walking, until she’d placed herself at Amy’s side, silently lending her support to whatever argument the other woman was going to make.

 

“You have to do this, and you can’t ask why,” Amy said, and her voice was nothing but apologies. Rose refrained from rolling her eyes. Where was the strong companion of the Doctor who ran out of her own wedding, waving cheerily to her guests?

 

“Are you being threatened?” the Doctor asked, looking at Rose, and then at Jack. “Is someone making you say that?”

 

“No,” Amy said, and even Rose wasn’t convinced. It was no wonder the Doctor accused her immediately of lying, glaring at Rose the entire time, as though this was her fault. Oh, she was going to smack that man.

 

“Swear to me,” he said, and Rose saw it. He was testing Amy. He knew, and he wanted to know if she could handle what was coming. “Swear to me on something that matters.”

 

 _What mattered to Amy and this Doctor_? Rose would have sworn on Jackie Tyler and chips, and the Doctor would have known that no matter what, she would have his back. _What mattered to Amy Pond and this man who wasn’t her Doctor_?

 

Amy thought, and then an odd sort of whimsical smile crossed her face. “Fish fingers and custard,” she said, nodding a bit, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

 

Rose let out a soft sigh of relief. Still the same man, then. The odd, inside jokes still mattered. The little things between the Doctor and his companions were still important.

 

“My life in your hands, Amelia Pond,” he said gravely. His face was sad, lost. And Rose realised that he still didn’t know, exactly, how he had died.

 

Oh - oh, that put a completely different spin on everything. Knowing that his companions had just watched him die, and that they were dragging him along somewhere immediately afterwards - he thought they were leading him to his death - circular paradox. And they very well might be, Rose realised - if only in a roundabout way. Two hundred years was a long time.

 

The Doctor was prepared to jump directly into the adventure of it all, but Rose laid a hand on his arm. “Doctor, I know you just got going, but it’s been a long day for everyone,” she said softly. “Maybe a few hours’ sleep before we rush headlong into things?”

 

He looked down at her, his smile softening, and the others were looking at her gratefully, all save for River, who was all resentment. “Of course, Rose Tyler,” he said, putting his hand over hers and squeezing. “Humans - you lot waste half your life sleeping. Suppose I can wait a little longer to see what’s so urgent while you get in a few more hours.” He looked around the room. “Well, then, you lot, off you pop - sleep! I’ll just keep us in the Vortex for a bit.”

 

“C’mon, Amy,” Rory said, leading his wife down one of the hallways, where Rose assumed they had a bedroom.

 

“Jack, I think you’ll find your old room is down the hall from River’s,” the Doctor said. “If you’ll follow the Ponds, both of you, you should find them without any trouble.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and Jack looked at her for confirmation before turning in the direction the couple had disappeared to, River following him, shooting angry looks over her shoulder until she was out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I was rewatching this episode today (7/20/16) in an effort to find the thread of the story again, and wanted to point out, to those who didn't watch it super carefully, that Rose and Jack seeing the Doctor directly overhead, listening in on their conversation is not headcanon. Watch the scene where Rory, River, and Amy are discussing why they are there - shortly after he asks if everyone is cross with him. He walks overhead, and hovers, just above Rory's head, for the majority of their talk. If you watch his feet, they stay in place. He knew. He knew what they were talking about. Which is why I had to come up with a reason for his asshattery - fear.


	9. Silence

Chapter 9.

Silence

 

Before he could say another word, Rose reached back and slapped him.

 

“You slapped me!” he said, looking at her in shock.

 

“You’ve been many things, Doctor, in the years I’ve known you, but never cruel,” she said, glaring at him. He was rubbing his cheek theatrically and working his jaw. She rolled her eyes.

 

“You lot are all hiding something from me,” he shot at her, pouting.

 

“Yes, and you listened in on enough of the conversation to know what it is and why they have to hide it,” she answered, not in the mood to play games with him. As his brow rose in surprise at being caught, she finally realised what was bothering her about his face. “And _what_ happened to your eyebrows!?”

 

He reached up and self-consciously rubbed them. “That’s just how they are, I don’t know!” he defended. He dropped his hand, and Rose saw it then, something he rarely allowed to cross his face - his age. “Is there anything you can tell me that I don’t know?”

 

“It’s fixed, but in flux,” she said. “This’ll be easier over tea. Take me to the kitchen, gangly one.”

 

He looked affronted over the nickname, but led her to a cosy kitchen, where she made tea quickly and joined him at a low table in the corner, grateful to be off her feet and just relaxing after the long day. She finally took off her hat, and unbraided the twin tails her hair was in, shaking it free before sipping the tea.

 

“Never let River make tea,” he said, taking a sip. “She burns it. I didn’t even know you could burn tea.”

 

“I think she does it on purpose,” Rose said, silently admitting she knew River - at least a future River. His non-existent eyebrows went up again. “She always liked my tea, though.”

 

“Well, you’ll need all the help you can get,” he muttered. “Now what did you mean - it’s fixed, but in flux?”

 

Rose closed her eyes, trying to remember everything she could about the moment she’d seen. “There’s something just - off - about time in general at that particular moment. It didn’t feel right. Add in a fixed point, with me, you, Jack, and River involved, and there’s so much that could be altered without actually altering it,” she said, watching all the various outcomes play out.

 

“Who are you?” he said. “Because Rose Tyler would never know any of that. Not very clever, that bit.”

 

She opened her eyes, allowing them to glow with everything she could see for just that moment. “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself,” she said. She let the glow die as the tea dribbled down his shirt down his shirt.

 

“Is that why you’re here, and not there, with him?” he asked, very carefully. This time there was no Jack to save her.

 

“No, Doctor. Big Bang Two. You rebooted the Universe. Only, you rebooted the Universe in 1996, when I was still on this side of the wall. You erased yourself from existence, and while some of us did our best to preserve the timelines, and keep things intact, there were some events that just never came to pass while you were waiting for Amy to remember you - like Canary Wharf. Like the Medusa Cascade. Or Bad Wolf Bay.” She tried not to sound bitter.

 

“You really were at Amy’s wedding,” he said. “I thought I was imagining you, but you were really there. Were you on the TARDIS, too, during that time?”

 

“I was sustaining her, and she was keeping me alive. We have a bond, you know,” Rose said lightly, knowing that he didn’t, actually, know. “It’s what the Bad Wolf is, after all - it’s me and the TARDIS, working together. It’s how our letter was addressed, too. The Bad Wolf and the Face of Boe - not Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. That tells me that whatever we’re getting into is bad, Doctor.”

 

A throat cleared from the doorway, and River Song walked in, wearing a long white dressing gown of something silky-looking. “I just popped in for some tea,” she said, and Rose realised the other woman was embarrassed. She thought she was interrupting something between her husband and another woman. In her position, Rose would have been furious, but River was withholding judgement. Rose’s respect for this River went up several notches, and at the Doctor’s awkward fumbling, she lost a bit for him. She’d never seen anyone look so guilty in her life.

 

“Doctor, go do whatever it is you normally do when your friends are sleeping,” she said, waving him off. He looked at her, eyes wide, but whatever he saw in her face must have reassured him, because he shuffled out of the room, looking over his shoulder, where one woman sat, denims, boots, pink button-down blouse and black leather jacket, the other in a white dressing gown, both of them clearly waiting for him to leave.

 

Once he was gone, Rose pointed to the teapot. “Have a cup, please,” she said. “You never could make tea.”

 

“Are we friends, then?” River asked, her back towards Rose as she poured the tea with unsteady hands. “It’s not unusual for me to travel with those who know things about me that I don’t know, but not usually to this extent.” She joined Rose at the table.

 

“The very best of friends,” Rose said, sipping her tea and stretching her legs out. “We had a flat together, me, you, Jack, and Mickey. We preserved the timeline when Gangly out there got himself written out of existence, and we could never have done it without you. The very best of friends, River. Please, remember - no matter what you may feel towards me right now - we’re the very best of friends.”

 

River took a sip from her cup. “This is very good tea,” she said, her voice very polite. “If I have you making tea like this for me, I can see why I’ve never bothered to learn how to do it properly for myself.”

 

“How much did you overhear?” Rose asked, looking at the dust on her black boots.

 

“How much did he?” River retorted, and Rose smiled. River was still River.

 

“Enough to piece it together, of course,” Rose said. “Everything dies, River. Everything comes to dust. Even the Doctor, someday. He, above everyone else, knows how true that is. How could he not, travelling as he does with those that he outlives, day after day?”

 

From old habit, Rose reached out, and grasped River’s free hand in comfort, and the bond they shared through the TARDIS flared to life. River pulled her hand away immediately. “How did you do that?” she asked, her eyes wide. “You can’t tell him - any of them!”

 

“Tell me, River, what you know of the Bad Wolf,” Rose said, taking her cup in both hands and wrapping her fingers around it.

 

“Legends, mostly,” River said, shrugging. “She’s a Time Goddess, the only one in existence. There are rumors that she protects the Doctor, as the last of his kind, watches over him - a few sources claim she sometimes takes a human form and becomes his lover, but I think that’s just romantic fancy. The Daleks fear her, and they fear nothing, supposedly. They call her ‘the Abomination’, though no one’s quite sure where or when that name came into existence.”

 

Rose smiled into her tea. “A goddess? Nah,” she said, laughing. “Just a girl from the Estates. The Doctor tried to send her home, keep her safe, because he was facing a fleet of Daleks with no way out, but she wouldn’t stay put. She pulled open the TARDIS, looked into the old girl’s heart, and the two became one - the girl in the TARDIS, the TARDIS in the girl. She called herself the Bad Wolf, after the name of the place they were on at the time, and she scattered the words across time and space, as a message to lead herself to the Doctor.”

 

River snorted into her tea. “That’s even more unrealistic than some of the other fairytales I’ve read,” River said, shaking her head. “A human girl took in the entire Vortex to save the Doctor? She’d have died. Painfully.”

 

River looked up at Rose’s silence, and when their eyes met, Rose continued. “It burned, but it was enough to wipe out the entire Dalek fleet - including the emperor. He’s the one who called me the abomination, by the way. And the Doctor took it out, triggered a regeneration. But you can’t just remove that sort of power and not expect anything to linger.”

 

“You expect me to believe that you’re the Bad Wolf, a Time Goddess of legend?” River said. “Oh, sweetie, I may not travel in the proper order, but I assure you I can not be made into a fool by ridiculous stories like that.”

 

Rose allowed herself to flare gold again, enough to get River’s attention, and then let the power settle; it was exhausting to call on it so much in one day. She’d be absolutely knackered soon.

 

“I am the Bad Wolf - well, we are,” Rose said, shrugging as River stared at her. “The TARDIS and I, working together, are the Bad Wolf. I think you called what I actually am ‘human-plus’.” Rose paused. “Like you.”

 

“You can’t tell him,” River repeated. “This is when he finds out - it’s coming very soon. It was the last time I saw him, actually - and the first time I saw you. We didn’t really have time to talk. But it’s when he finds out everything. And he has to discover it on his own.”

 

“You do realise that he knows why you’re in prison, I hope,” Rose said, side-stepping whatever it was she wasn’t supposed to tell the Doctor, because there were some things River had been very close-lipped about, even at five hundred.

 

“He suspects, he doesn’t have proof,” River whispered, looking down into her tea.

 

“No, River,” Rose said, standing and putting down her mug. “He knows. That he’s giving you a chance to tell him means he’s offering you the opportunity to prove that he can trust you, despite it - he’s trying to give you a chance to make him trust you. And every single time you lie, evade the answer, or give him another reason not to, you’re putting another nail in your own coffin.”

 

“I look in his eyes, and I see my death,” River said. “I know he was there. He looks at me like he’s looking at a ghost. For him, it’s already happened. Tell me, Rose Tyler, how do I get out of a coffin that’s already been closed?”

 

The temptation to spin around and smirk, whisper ‘spoilers’, because of course, River had only been able to say it once she was leaving the room - it was so strong. But Rose knew this would be it, the tipping point for her and River. They might never get another chance, and it would probably never work out for them, not this River and her, but she could try and give this River something to live for, because as far as the woman behind her was concerned, she was already dead - it was only a matter of waiting for the day. “Trust me, trust Jack, and remember something very important, something I never, ever thought I’d say - ‘The Doctor lies’,” Rose said.

 

“Thank you,” River said as Rose walked out of the room. The TARDIS hummed in her head, leading her down a hallway towards the familiar door, the circular symbol she knew by heart engraved on the door.

 

She laughed when she opened it. Her room looked far more lived in than it had before, and she noticed a rather large array of empty jam-pots, a rather filthy pair of Converse, a tattered pinstriped suit, and a black leather jacket that had never, in any lifetime, belonged to her cluttering up the room. He’d been living in her room at some point, that much was obvious. Oh, that idiotic man. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She pulled out a worn pair of knit pajamas from the wardrobe and stripped down for a long, soothing shower. The shower was warm enough to work out most of the knots in her shoulders from the long day, and she finally settled herself into her bed, snuggling down under the covers, giggling a bit to herself as she inhaled the scent that seemed to cling to her bedding.

 

Yep, he’d definitely been living in her room.

* * *

 

 

River Song was not stupid. She knew the Doctor had companions beyond herself and her parents. She’d seen them with him, from time to time, and always known that it wasn’t quite safe to approach. Especially the one with the big ears and leather coat. Even to her, he was a bit intimidating. She'd even, once, from a distance, seen Rose Tyler. She'd been younger then – young and innocent and the everyday kind of pretty that most girls that young are. Heavily made up and bottle blonde, innocence and youth dripping from her pores, River hadn't pictured her as a threat. Amy was a greater threat to her place in the Doctor's heart than little blonde Rose Tyler.

 

And then the teenager had smiled. It was a wide grin, with a hint of little pink tongue peeking out, snuggling up into the leather-clad arm of that forebidding man, her face turned up to him and her eyes alight – and he, of the heavy brows and the fierce expression - he'd lit up. He'd grinned down at the little human girl clinging  to his arm, and River could swear that centuries of blood and war had fallen from him in that little movement. The Doctor – the large, scary Doctor who wore battered armor with the look of a world-weary soldier – he was in love with this tiny little human girl.

 

Her only consolotion was that this girl, this Rose Tyler, would be long gone before she ever met the Doctor.

 

But she was here. In the TARDIS, with the Doctor, in a place and time she wasn't supposed to be. It was wrong – not just because Rose Tyler was the Doctor's past, intruding on her future with him – she'd seen the way even this man, her own husband, had looked when he'd realised the girl was real. Which, in and of itself, was worrying. He'd been seeing her, thinking he was imagining her, for years, possibly centuries. And Rose claimed they were friends, but she couldn't imagine being friends with the woman who would steal her husband from her. Oh, she knew the Doctor loved her – but he only ever loved her with one heart. The same one he loved Rory, and Amy, and Strax, and Vastra – it was the heart he loved everyone with. She'd always thought the other one must have been broken in the War, but she now suspected it was Rose Tyler responsible for that. She'd caught enough of the implications in the diner – Rose Tyler was supposed to be living in a parallel world.

 

A knock on the door pulled her from her musings, and she opened it, unsurprised to see the handsome man whose very existence grated on every sense she had.

 

"Doctor Song," he said, bobbing his head. "Wondered if I might have a word."

 

She opened the door wider to allow him entry and leaned against it as he took in her private space. She was a daughter of the TARDIS, and it showed.

 

"Never saw the old girl go out of her way for someone like this before," he said, casually. "She must like you."

 

"Don't play games with me, Harkness."

 

"Careful, sweetheart, your Doctor is showing." He dropped into the chair at her desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. "Other you told Rosie that you weren't his daughter – that your parents were completely human. And little Amelia Pond is pregnant. Is that a coincidence, River?"

 

"You mean I never told my very best friend who my parents are?" Her eyes narrowed – she'd suspected that Rose Tyler was lying to her when she'd claimed they were friends.

 

Jack laughed. "You were five hundred years old, River. There was a lot you couldn't tell her. But you loved her. And she loved you – gods, River, she adored you. You were mother, sister, daughter, best friend – you were Professor River Song, the woman who saved her, who made sure she could find the Doctor, who held her after her Mum died, who explained why her Mum had to die – which was a damn shame, mind you. Jackie Tyler was one hell of a woman, and she was the only mother the Doctor had after the War. And she's gone. He'll never see her again."

 

A part of her registered that – even felt sorry for the Doctor, once he realised that Rose’s mother was dead – but most of her mind was trying to wrap around the idea that she would live to be at least five hundred years old. “You can’t tell me this – this is future knowledge. I can’t have this!”

 

Harkness laughed. “There was a lot you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say, River. But something I picked up on pretty quickly was that the River Song we met wasn’t just preserving the history of the Earth while the Doctor was missing during those fourteen years – she was rewriting quite a few things, too.” He smiled at her shocked expression. “The way she’d look at Rose, Donna, Mickey, and Martha – as much as she acted like she’d known them forever, she had such a hunger in her eyes. They were strangers to her. She never met them.”

 

“Donna Noble?” River’s voice was strained. In a long history of failing companions, there were few that he allowed to haunt him for so long – and Donna Noble’s was one of them. “Why aren’t my memories changing? If you lot are really rewriting history, why don’t I remember things differently. I never even met you until Demon’s Run.” She’s completely given up on trying to keep secrets from this impossible man.

 

He shrugged, settling further back into the chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him. “My guess is that, for him, most of those things haven’t happened yet. He barely knows you, River, and he doesn’t trust you – then again, this him doesn’t seem to trust easily, so I might be off base. You said you met us at Demon’s Run – I’ve got a passing familiarity with the place, but we haven’t been there yet. Things will probably change more rapidly as we start intersecting with your past.”

 

His conclusions were logical. Unlike what most people believed, timelines weren’t straight lines that lead from one fixed point to another. There was a lot of wiggle room in there, and when introducing new scenarios between two time-travellers (or more, in this case), there was a certain amount of unpredictability to the results. It wasn’t as though there was a handbook for rewriting time, after all. There were, however, a few things she knew that she had to warn him about.

 

“Demon’s Run – you can’t change it. I know she,” and there was no need to elaborate on whom she meant, “has that power, but she can’t. My entire life hinges on it. I was born there. I have to be born there.”

 

“Amelia Pond’s daughter, and the Doctor doesn’t know…” he trailed off; a few moments later his eyes narrowed. “I think, River Song, I understand perfectly, now. I can keep your secrets, but this is something you’re going to have to talk to Rosie about. If she isn’t to interfere, she’s going to want to know why.”

 

"I can't tell her."

 

“I can’t promise she’ll agree, then.” Jack took a deep breath. “I know you think that things have to happen this way, but Rose is very, very good. She’ll know if it is something that absolutely cannot be changed – fixed points and all that. But if it can be, I can’t promise you she won’t.”

 

He smiled kindly at her and left the room, leaving River to finally let loose the tears that were threatening. She wasn’t afraid that Rose wouldn’t be able to fix her life, but that she could. If Rose changed her life, then River didn’t know who she would be. And that terrified her.

* * *

 

 

The Doctor waited in the console room, his mind awhirl; Rose knew River – a future River – but how? River was dead. It was one of the hardest things about her – yes, it was difficult to think that he was meant to fulfill a circular paradox with her at some point in the future, but every  time he saw her, her watched her die again. Every time he saw her, she was getting closer and closer to that point. The second time he’d met her, the first time she’d seen Amy, she was probably within months or weeks of her death.

 

It was impossible that Rose Tyler – fantastic, brilliant, amazing Rose Tyler – was actually friends with a River Song who had a future. But then, Rose Tyler should be in a parallel universe. But here she was, in his universe, glowing with the power of the Bad Wolf. He dropped in the middle of the drunken giraffe into the nearest jumpseat. All that time she’d spent on his TARDIS, all those months they’d travelled together, long after the Gamestation, and he’d never once checked her. Oh, he’d scanned her with the sonic, but it hadn’t turned up anything, and he hadn’t wanted to subject her to something more invasive without reason, so he’d let it go, reasoning if she’d still had any lingering traces of the Vortex inside her, they’d have manifested.

 

Stupid - he was so very bloody stupid. And now – the Bad Wolf was involved in something that was utterly terrifying – his death. “I want you safe, my Doctor,” she said, all those years ago. Was that why she was here? Was she protecting him?

 

He didn’t have time to ponder it, because the others arrived in a rather large clump of chatty humans, and he wondered if his bloody-minded ship was interfering on purpose, but he danced around the console, throwing them into the fray.

 

He switched the TARDIS into invisible and silent, glowering at River when she tried to interfere – reminded him of the Byzantium, that, where she’d insisted that his ship had stabilizers! As if he wouldn’t know!

 

Rose and Jack were hanging back while the others tried to follow him out, but he pushed them off to the side and made his way into the Oval Office as silently as possible. He listened to the the recorded voice – definitnely a girl’s voice, despite what the President thought, and started taking notes.

 

And then he was discovered.

 

While Jack and Rose smoothed things over, he convinced Nixon to give him a chance.

* * *

 

 

Amelia Pond-Williams was more than a little unsettled. First, friends of the Doctor’s, friends she’d never heard of (and that Rose was definitely more than a friend) appeared out of nowhere, and then the Doctor died, only he wasn’t dead yet, it was still hundreds of years in his future, and now – now her so-called “morning” sickness was rearing its ugly head. She turned her head, caught a glimpse of something – a tall, thin thing in a black suit, even. Wait, hadn’t she seen one of those before? Earlier, at the lake. Rose touched her shoulder, and Amy turned towards her, her stomach roiling in protest.

 

“I need a loo,” she muttered.

 

“Right,” the blonde said. “Doctor, Captain, I’m taking her to the ladies. Anyone got a problem with that?” Rose glared up at the tall black-suited man who was blocking her path, and then to Amy’s hands on her stomach, and back at the man again. He didn’t stop them.

 

As soon as they were out of the Doctor’s range of hearing, she paused, and looked over at the blonde woman. “How did you know?”

 

“For someone trying to keep it a secret, you’re holding your stomach a lot,” Rose said, shrugging.

 

“You can’t tell the Doctor,” Amy pleaded, surprised when Rose just laughed and shook her head. “What?”

 

“S’nothing – just a lot of people have things I can’t tell the Doctor. That’s all.” Rose pushed open the door into the ladies’ room and Amy rushed into a cubicle as her stomach gave another particularly violent lurch.

 

She flushed when she was done, and was about to step out, when Rose’s voice stopped her. “Amelia Pond, whatever you do, stay in that cubicle, and do not come out.” The was a pause. “I mean it, Amy” the blonde called as though she could see Amy’s hand on the latch, and she shoved it into her pocket.

 

The lights flickered, and Amy reached for the latch again, but Rose’s voice came again – though Amy was pretty sure she wasn’t talking to her.

 

“I don’t know know who you are, or what your interest in Amy is, but you’ll leave her alone, or you’ll be dealing with me, yeah?” A long silence, and then she continued. “Yeah? You sure about that, mate?” Another pause, and it seemed like there must be someone, or something, on the other side of the door, that Rose was talking to – something Amy couldn’t hear. When Rose’s voice came again, it was oddly hollow and layered, her usual deep accent changed to something posh and cultured – she sounded like some sort of divine being.

 

“I am the Bad Wolf – ah, you’ve heard of me then.” The lights stopped flickering, but the room was suddenly too bright, a glowing, gold brightness that made Amy close her eyes to avoid being blinded, and for half a moment, she thought something screamed, but the bright glow beyond her eyelids dimmed and she risked peeking through them, not surprised to see that the light levels had returned to normal.

 

“We’re going now, Amy. It’s safe to come out.”

 

Amy looked around the room – there was a small pile of dust in front of the far stall, but nothing else. “Rose?”

 

“Silence, Amy. That’s what this is about. Silence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a delay, I know. This chapter has had me blocked for so long. It's not been beta read, please feel free to point out all of my errors. It's far too short, but I wanted to get PAST this so I could move on. We should be wrapping up in three-four chapters. The story's taken a turn I didn't expect and I'm going to run with it. Thanks so much for your patience! I definitely rushed through the bits in the Oval Office because honestly, how many times do we have to see that scene redone? But the next chapter should be a much more interesting one.


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